Category: Historical Studies

Historiography and the miraculous.

Ethiopian icon of Jesus healing a blind man.

In the second debate between Craig A. Evans and Bart D. Ehrman (see “Ehrman-Evans 2012 debates”) Evans was asked about the miraculous as relates to doing history. The question was framed in such as way as to discover whether or not Evans is consistent when he reads claims about miracles in ancient literature. In other words, does he accept Christian claims while denying others? If so, why?

Well, Evans does give miracles a fair hearing even in literature not related to Judaism/Christianity. He noted that one of his presuppositions is theism. Although he is a Christian theist he does not deny the possibility of miraculous actions in history. Of course, Ehrman’s agnosticism makes him very skeptical to such reports if not completely closed to them.

I feel the same way. If I read an account where something “miraculous” took place I don’t know that I automatically agree that the interpretation of the event demands divine intervention (or the intervention of unseen forces like spirits, angels, or demons), but I am not closed to the possibility. I did come into Christianity through Pentecostalism!

That said, I wonder if we should leave room in our historiography for complete affirmation or denial of miraculous events. In other words, do I believe Jesus healed a blind man and raised some dead people? Yes. Do I think we can verify this historically? I’m not sure.

Remember, there are people present in some narratives where Jesus does the miraculous and they attribute it the work of Beelzebub. The event happens, some see a miracle of God, some see a work of Satan. I think historiography allows us to admit this before we make the next step where we say what we subjectively think about the event.

What can we verify? We can suggest that there is a strong probability that followers of Jesus saw him do things that they could not explain that they attributed to the work of God. This is an interpretation of the events though. At best, we know Jesus did enough to cause people to see him as a miracle worker. I don’t know if doing history allows one to makes claims that God did this or that.

Does this mean one cannot strongly believe that God did do this or that? Of course not! When we do history and construct histories we cannot do it without our presuppositions and worldviews bleeding into our historiography. Eventually all history moves from the data to interpretations of the data to a narrative constructed around that interpretation.

If someone is not a Christian they will likely say (data) people believed that Jesus healed a blind man, but (interpretation) there is likely some natural explanation or mythology developed based on crowd hype, therefore (narrative) we have a Jesus who was a perceived miracle worker though we “know” no one can do those things.

On the other hand a Christian see the data but (interpretation) it was a work of God like the Evangelists interpreted it to be and therefore (narrative) Jesus’ miracles prove A,B, and C about him.

At the end of the day history is not a science. It isn’t just an art either, but it may come closer to the latter than the former. Eventually our “histories” are interpretations of the data. We “know” things to some extent (I appreciate the insights of critical realists), but we use a subjective lens.

 

Defining “historical reliability”.

Yesterday as I watched the first debate between Bart D. Ehrman and Craig A. Evans (see my post “Ehrman-Evans 2012 debates”) I became increasingly frustrated by the phrase “historical reliability” since it seems like an undefined oblong blur. Evans and Ehrman agreed on much, especially that the Gospels don’t do modern history, they have contradictions between them, they provide different pictures of Jesus, and that we can reconstruct a “historical Jesus” from them. After this they go separated directions because Ehrman thinks that while we can get a picture of Jesus from the Gospels they are unreliable historically (overall) while Evans thinks that the picture is a bit clearer than Ehrman will allow and that because we can get this clearer picture we must consider them historically reliable (overall).

I wrote Greg Monette who moderated the debate and he made this great point:

“One thing I find frustrating with both Ehrman and Evans is that they never explained how to decide at what juncture a text becomes either reliable or unreliable. What I mean by this is: say 10% of the text is historically inaccurate (I’m just throwing out a random number). Does this mean the text as a whole is historically unreliable? Or does it mean it is 90% reliable and 10% unreliable? If there is a scale, at what point does the ancient text become reliable or unreliable? 95-5; 90-10; 80-20; 60-40; 51-49? I mean, what tips the scales? Is there a science to this sort of thing? Does a text have to be 100% accurate to be historically reliable? Because if that is the case, there is hardly anything/anybody in history that is historically reliable.”

This is a great point worth clarifying. If we were to place Ehrman, Evans, and another of Ehrman’s former debate partners Daniel B. Wallace together in a room would they have different “percentages” of reliability? Would Ehrman the skeptic say “10%” while Evans says “60%” followed by Wallace (who affirms inerrancy) saying “90%” with some genre clarifications?

At times it felt like the differences between the two debaters was minimal, but the trajectories of those differences were vast. As we continue to discuss what we mean by “historical reliability” we must clarify what we mean by this.

If we were discussing the life of Julius Caesar would we make blanket statements about the works of Livy, Suetonius, or Plutarch? Would we say that their historical inaccuracies make them completely reliable or completely unreliable? Would we say they are “historically inaccurate” if one of them did not intend on framing Caesar’s life chronologically, but ordered it to make a moral point? What if in the middle of a history there was a section full of sayings from Caesar that we know came from different times and places but that the author strung together to provide a overview of Caesar’s philosophy? I imagine the discussion would be different.

There is more at stake when Jesus is debated. He is more relevant to modern peoples. I think this clouds discussions of historicity at times from both sides. Some skeptics may avoid generalizations that frame the debate as “all-or-nothing”. Some Christian historians may be able to admit that while they believe Jesus did this or that miracle they know it is not verifiable using modern historiography (this is where Craig Keener’s recent work becomes so controversial). Whatever the case may be we need to provide more clarity for future audiences as we debate subjects like the “historical reliability” of the Gospels.

Rethinking history with Keith Jenkins (Pt. 3).

If you’ve haven’t had an opportunity to read Part 1 and Part 2 of my interaction with Keith Jenkins’ Re-thinking History I recommend reading those post first. In the third and final chapter of this book titled “Doing history in the post-modern world” Jenkins presents his logic for still doing historical work, even though he has shown himself to be very skeptical about one’s ability to accurately “know” the past. He addresses the definition of postmodernism, the implications of postmodernism, and how to do history now. (p. 59)

Jenkins follows Lyotard’s “death of centres” and “incredulity towards metanarratives”. He explains it as such:

“…all those old organizing frameworks that presupposed the privileging of various centres (things that are, for example, Anglo-centric, Euro-centric, ethno-centric, gender-centric, logo-centric) are no longer regarded as legitimate and natural frameworks (legitimate because natural), but as temporary fictions which were useful for articulation not of universal but of actually very particular interest; whilst ‘incredulity toward metanarratives’ means that those great structuring (metaphysical) stories which have given meaning(s) to western developments have been drained of vitality.” (p. 60

There is much right and some things wrong with Jenkins’ argument in my estimation. First, he is right to criticize the convolution of our unique perspectives into universals. Some like Kant thought this or that was self-evident in all humans because we share humanity. This may be true in part, but it is false in part as well. We do bring our socio-political, socio-economic, linguistic, biological, and other presuppositions to the world. This shades how we understand things.

For instance, if a Spaniard wrote a history of the conquistadors it may look very, very different from if a Native American sat down to tell the story. This doesn’t mean some “objective facts” like dates, names, and that one civilization “defeated” another aren’t obvious, but how that story is “framed” is relative.

I agree with Jenkins on the relativity of history telling, but he can easily, easily be misunderstood as  ignoring any form of sure knowledge when we do historical work. We must remember that Jenkins doesn’t deny that some things can be “know”, but he questions whether the overarching story or message in which those facts are placed can be anything but subjective. As long as we realize subjectivity isn’t “bad” or necessarily “wrong”, but simply angled and limited, we can move forward.

Of course, we find ourselves with one major problem. If certain ways of telling the story of the world cannot be “true” why is Jenkins call to utter subjectivity “true”? He side steps this to say “Post-modernism is the general expression of those circumstances. Post-modernism is not a united movement. It is not a tendency which essentially belongs to either the left of the centre or the right…” At the end I still wonder what makes this “description” truer than other descriptions. Can postmodernism’s definition automatically kill this understanding of postmodernity? Or maybe the relativity of postmodernity proves its own point?

When we say that there are “histories” instead of a “history” we admit that our telling  may be unique and limited. It doesn’t explain the world. On a side note, how does this jive with a Christian description of the world? In part we can affirm it. We know that the Christian way of explaining the world is our own. We can’t speak of God’s redemption through Christ as an active reality for those who believe. It isn’t “obvious” and “universal” for those who don’t believe. This doesn’t mean it isn’t “true”, but that is where eschatology comes into play.

Jenkins “steps” toward doing historiography in a postmodern world are helpful. First, he emphasizes a “reflexive methodology”. In other words, be self-reflective and self-critical. (p. 69) You must realize your work is an “act of interpretation”. (p. 70) Second, remember that when you write a history you are selective. You chose the data to present and the data to ignore. In doing this you control how your hearers understand “the past”. This makes it most obvious that what you are doing is not universal or objective, but it can be “true” none the less.

Final thoughts:

Let us imagine we are one of the Evangelists writing a Gospel. Is our historiography objective? No. We intend to tell the story of Jesus and we are intentional about tying Jesus to the story of the Hebrew Scriptures. Does this mean history is lost? No. It is framed and shaded. There are some things that will easily convince most people (Jesus of Nazareth existed) and other things you will work hard to prove (the resurrection). This is why the Four Gospels tell the same “Gospel” differently. They are subjective “histories” of Jesus.

That said, scholars mostly recognize they are better sources than some other later “gospels” because even if subjective and skewed to convert readers they are closer to the events, closer to eyewitness accounts, closer to the land and people. This doesn’t make them universal or faultless, but it does make them more reliable.

Now imagine you are a modern historical Jesus scholar. Your presuppositions and worldview concerning Jesus will inform whether or not you reject or accept the claims of the Gospels. One can hardly pretend to be the “objective” agnostic against the “subjective” Christian. Both are subjective. Both look at the data through a lens. Both may recognize some “truth” though it will be angled and not objective. I think realizing this is helpful moving forward. Acknowledging presuppositions never hurts…except those who want to pretend they don’t have any.

Rethinking history with Keith Jenkins (Pt. 2).

In my previous engagement with Keith Jenkins’ Rethinking History (see part 1) I examine his assault on the idea that history = the past, that history is singular, and that history can be objectively understood. Today I ponder his arguments in Chapter Two: “On some questions and some answers”. These are the seven questions he addresses with his answers:

1. What is the status of truth in the discourses of history?

Jenkins suggests that gaining real (true) knowledge is “unachievable”. (p. 28) As discussed in the last post there is a chasm between the event and the historian. We know the event through the traces it has left, but how reliable are those traces? Jenkins says we can still use the word “know”, but he makes this qualification:

We are (our culture is) a-moral, skeptical, ironic, secular. We are partners with uncertaintiy; we have distruved truth, have tracked it down and found it to be a linguistic sign, a concept. Truth is a self-referencing figure of speech, incapable of accessing the phenomenal world: word and world, word and object, remain separate. (pp. 29-30)

Jenkins states plainly, “…truth is always created and never found.” (p. 31) So, we can’t “find” the truth of history, we merely “create” it. This is what we know. Jenkins follows Foucault stating, “…truth is dependent on somebody having the power to make it true.” (p. 31)

Of course, the reader should stop in his/her tracks to ask, “Is Jenkins telling the truth?” Should we find it problematic that Jenkins expects us to believe him when he says, “History is a discourse, a language game; within it ‘truth’ and similar expressions are open, regulate and shut down interpretations. Truth acts as a censor–it draws the line.” (p. 32)

2. Is there any such thing as objective history, or is history just interpretation?

Jenkins says that it is true that we can find “facts” (p. 32) like the year someone was born, but he claims, “…historians are not too concerned about discrete facts (facts as individual facts), for such a concern only touches that part of historical discourse called its chronicle. No, historians have ambitions, wishing to discover not only what happened but how and why and what these things meant and mean.” (pp. 32-33) So it isn’t so much the problem of say know Jesus of Nazareth was understood by people to be the Messiah of Israel (a fairly self-evident fact), but what historians do with that data when they write their histories on Jesus of Nazareth. They are not objective anymore. They import their subjective understanding of Jesus into their discourse.

3. What is bias and what are the problems involved in trying to get rid of it?

Historians are bias. This is a plain fact. Let me use Jesus of Nazareth again. If someone is an atheist they will have no room for the possible historical accuracy of miracle reports. If they are a believing Christian they may have a very hard time denying the accuracy of such reports. There isn’t much to add to this.

4. What is empathy; can it be done, how, why, and if it cannot be achieved, why does it seem so important to try?

So how do we avoid pure subjectivity based on our bias? Many historians suggest empathy. In other words, “the claim that one has to get into an informed appreciation of the predicaments and viewpoints of people in the past in order to gain real historical understanding…” Let me return to historical Jesus studies. Scholars learn as much as possible about Second Temple Judaism, ancient Rome, the geography of the land, the religious beliefs of the people, and so forth. Why? Because if you don’t know the historical context you will import your modern context.

BUT Jenkins doubts that this is all that effective. He gives some reasons for why this is unachievable:

(1) “The philosophical problem of ‘other minds’…[which] considers whether it is possible to enter into the mind of another person we know well…” If we try our hardest to pretend we are a Jew in Jerusalem in the first century can we do it? Jenkins says no. (p. 39)

(2) “For what  is effectively ignored in empathy is that in every act of communication there is an act of translation going on; that every act of speech (speech-act) is an ‘interpretation between privacies’.” If I try to think like a first century Jew as a twenty-first century American it is inevitable that I will translate things from that world into my own. I cannot understand it from their world.

(3) “…there is no presuppositionless interpretation of the past…” and “…interpretations of the past are constructed in the present…”

We can boil down Jenkins’ objection to the distance between historian and events, the need for translation, and they presuppositions we use to filter the data. At the end of the day we are no where near thinking like a first century Jew. We think about first century Jesus through twenty-first century paradigms no matter how hard we try not to.

That said, anyone who has done historical work knows from experience that one’s ideas do alter when we try to be empathetic. We do not obtain objectivity, and we do filter the data, but we move closer to understanding a different world when we try than those who do not. I think Jenkins point here must be taken with a grain-of-salt since he often comes across as “all-0r-nothing”.

5. What are the differences between primary and secondary sources (traces) and between ‘evidence’ and ‘sources’: what is at stake here?

Jenkins makes the assertion that all sources as “surface” sources. We cannot dig any further down. This leads him to the conclusion that we are “…if we are freed from the desire for certainty, if we are released from the idea that history rests on the study of primary/documentary sources…then we are free to see history as an amalgam of those epistemological, methodological, ideological and practical concerns I have outlined.” (p. 48)

I admit, I am a bit surprised by this assertion. Even if our knowledge of history is always on the surface at least primary sources are ground level while secondary sources are a few stories from the ground. There is no way to avoid making history into total mythology if we do not have primary sources. Not all secondary sources are created equal either.

Jenkins asks, “Does the evidence of the past press itself so irresistibly upon the historian that he/she can do not other than allow it to speak for itself?” (p. 48) No, of course not, but it is still the evidence, the data, and not merely a secondary report on the data.

Let’s compare historical work to that of a detective. Reading a newspaper’s account of a murder is not the same as investigating the murder scene and interviewing witnesses. Yes, interpretation is involved, and no we cannot have absolute certainty, but degrees of plausibility and certainty do exist. I am puzzled by Jenkins here.

6. What do you do with those couplets (cause and effect, continuity and change, similarity and difference) and is it possible to do what you are asked to do through using them?

I alluded to this problem earlier: when event A is followed by event B does it necessitate “cause-and-effect”. When a historian says that the United States bombed Hiroshima because of A is it really because of A or is that a construct made by the historian? Is it like a bat hitting a ball pushing it away? Do event work like that or when we do history do we create cause-and-effect?

7. Is history an art or a science?

History isn’t a science in Jenkins’ view, but more like an art. This threatens the guild, because it turns a nose to their methodology and regulations.

Rethinking history with Keith Jenkins (Pt. 1).

Recently I finished Keith Jenkins’ book Re-Thinking History (Routledge, 1991). Jenkins is a professor of history at the University of Chichester who is known for his advocating of a postmodern historiography. What characterizes a “postmodern” historiography? Well, oddly enough this statement by the philosopher Voltaire works quite well:  ”There is no history, only fictions of varying degrees of plausibility.”

In other words, when someone writes a “history” they take data available to them (archaeological, botanical, paleontological, papyrological, etc) and they reconstruct a narrative from that data. It could be argued that many events given a cause-and-effect relationship in say a book on Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon are the complete invention of the author. Sure, we find that this or that happened, but do we know that this or that caused Caesar to move toward Rome? How do we know?

Some historians seek to do history as scientists do science. They want testable hypothesis that result in some form of “objective” knowledge. Others say that this is not possible, so the best analogy for the work of a historian is that of an artist taking various materials to paint a picture for his/her audience.

In Jenkins’ book he advocates a very subjective, almost relativistic understanding of history.  I think there is a lot to learn from what he says, though I have my contentions. Over three parts I will interact with Jenkins as an amateur in historiography. I hope to come away a better thinker on how to do historical studies.

History is Histories; there isn’t one “history”.

Jenkins is a Lyotard of historiography in that his first attack is upon the idea that there is one “history” that is all encompassing. Rather, Jenkins argues that there are many, many “histories” (plural) that tell many, many stories from many, many angles. (p. 3) These histories are discourses on various subjects. (p. 5) History and “the past” are not one and the same since the past has happened, but history is a present interpretation of some of the events of the past. (pp. 6-7)

When the historian seeks to bridge the past to the present s/he does so with presuppositions involved. S/he has “epistemological fragility” as Jenkins dubs it. He states, “…no historian can cover and thus re-cover the totality of past events because their ‘content’ is virtually limitless. What he wants the reader to note is that even a modern historian writing on say the election of President Barack Obama must chose to include and exclude details and there are thousands of details that the historian cannot know. “Second, no account can re-cover the past as it was because the past was not an account but events, situations, etc.” (p. 11)

In addition to the chasm of time we have the chasm of experience. Jenkins notes that “…history relies on someone else’s eyes and voice”. (p. 12) Often we aren’t the primary source of our historical work. We rely upon the accounts of others. We receive the events through their subjective lens.

So how do historians make their work secure? Often it comes down to a discussion of methodology. Jenkins thinks this falls short since historians use many different methodologies and often do not agree on how to do the task at hand. (pp. 15-16)

Even if a historian thinks they have a well-developed methodology there are many more factors to consider: the guild and it’s influence, epistemological presuppositions, particular “routines and procedures”, the influence of the work of other historians, the process of writing a history (including the work of editors, limited word counts, sell-ability), and finally, to move to the reader, their own subjective understanding of what you wrote. (pp. 20-24)

What Jenkins accomplishes in his first chapter “What is History?” is the deconstruction of the reader’s confidence in objective historiography. He humbles the reader’s epistemological self-understanding. He challenges the whole guild of historians who feel that their club has discovered the “rules of engagement” for doing good historical work that allows us to say with confidence that this happened, this did not, and this is why this happened.

So you may ask what Jenkins offers once he has torn down the common understanding of historiography. This is his definition of “history”:

History is a shifting, problematic discourse, ostensibly about an aspect of the world, the past, that is produced by a group of present-minded workers (overwhelmingly in our culture salaried historians) who go about their work in mutually recognizable ways that are epistemologically, methodologically, ideologically and practically positioned and whose products, once in circulation, are subject to a series of uses and abuses that are logically infinite but which in actuality generally correspond to a range of power bases that exist at any given moment and which structures and distributes the meanings of histories along a dominant-marginal spectrum.” (p. 26)

If Jenkins is correct in his understanding of “history” then we should abandon any idea that we can be “objective” in our historical work or that we are recovering the “bare facts”. No, we are reconstructing a narrative from the available data. That said, it seems that Jenkins departs from epistemological arrogrance to epistemological nihilism. Does it have to be “all-or-nothing” or can we reframe the discussion around “degree” of “plausibility” instead? 

In the Mail: Jesus Have I Loved, but Paul? by Daniel Kirk

Jesus Have I Loved, but Paul? by Daniel Kirk

Yesterday I received a review copy of Daniel Kirk‘s Jesus Have I Loved, but Paul? A Narrative Approach to the Problem of Pauline Christianity in the mail courtesy of Baker Academic (you can learn more about the book here). I will be part of a blog tour running from the 9th to the 20th of January that is full of quality reviewers. We will be taking a chapter each, but I am sure that I will be sharing more of this book than my allotted chapter.

I am excited about Kirk’s book for three reasons: (1) I have gained much from his “storied” approach to hermeneutics and Christian theology. (2) I was influenced by his first book Unlocking Romans: Resurrection and the Justification of God. It led me to trust Kirk as a quality exegete and thinker. (3) While I struggle at times with some of the things found in the Pauline corpus  I disdain attempts to radically split the Apostle’s project from that of Jesus. I think this is the result of a misunderstanding of Paul, the Evangelists, and the core of the Gospel found in both the Pauline Epistles and the canonical Gospels.

These are some excerpts that have caught my eye already:

“I take it as a sign of the significant cultural shift to postmodernity that innumerable evangelicals are holding on to their core evangelical convictions (including the Bible as the Word of God) without feeling the compulsion to embrace the notion of the inerrancy of Scripture.” (p. 7)

“Jesus as we meet him on the pages of the Gospels is not living out a self-contained story. He is acting out a final, climactic scene in the ongoing drama of Israel that stretches back to creation and comes to its promised resolution with his death and resurrection.” (p. 15)

“If it is faithful to the Gospels to say that Jesus proclaims God, it is equally true to say that in these same Gospels God proclaims Jesus. There are only two or three times in the Gospels when God’s voice literally sounds from heaven, and in each the heavenly witness is testifying to Jesus’ identity as God’s Son.” (p. 18)

“Resurrection is not about flight from creation but about new creation.” (p. 20)

“The story of the kingdom of God is one in which humanity rules a world that is, in its entirety, subject to God through the faithful work of God’s people.” (p. 34)

I hope that peaks your interest a bit. If you can get the book (maybe from someone for Christmas?!) I recommend you do. If you are skeptical make sure to follow this blog and the blog tour in January so we can change your mind!

N.T. Wright on the Jesus of Pope Benedict XVI, Maurice Casey, and Bruce N. Fisk.

N.T. Wright has written an article for The Times Literary Supplement reviewing Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection by Pope Benedict XVI; Jesus of Nazareth: An Independent Historian’s Account of His Life and Teaching by Maurice Casey; and A Hitchhiker’s Guide to Jesus: Reading the Gospels on the Ground by Bruce N. Risk that can be accessed here: “The Pope’s Life of Jesus”.

Wright classifies these three books on Jesus as “pre-modern”, “modern”, and “post-modern” in approach. While this may be a simplified classification system it is worth considering how these three approaches to the historical Jesus collide and collaborate.

 

Anthony Le Donne on “the game of telephone”.

You may have heard some scholars compare the oral traditions of the early church to the “the game of telephone” wherein you gather a circle of children, tell the first one something, then watch as it morphs until it is barely recognizable when it has gone all the way around. This analogy is used to show how unlikely it is that oral tradition could have been stable enough to provide us with any useful Jesus traditions that would have survived long enough to become literary traditions when the Gospels were composed.

In Historical Jesus: What Can We Know and How Can We Know It Le Donne challenges this view. He writes of two aspects of oral culture: variation and stability. Variation would be the differences we find when a story is retold or a song covered by multiple groups while stability is that aspect that allows us to recognize it as the same basic song or story. Le Donne uses the example of how Bob Dylan’s “Along the Watchtower” has been covered by Jimi Hendrix, U2, and The David Matthews Band. Each rendition is different and the same. It is new and old.

Le Donne takes these principles of variation and stability and writes this response to those who use “the game of telephone” as an analogy:

It must be said that this is not a controlled exercise in orality. It is an exercise in variation without stability. The vast majority of human civilization operated with largely illiterate cultures. Are we to imagine that all these civilizations were the equivalent of giggling children? That the golden ages of Egypt, Rome, Britain, the Maya, etcetera had no confidence in the reliability of social communication?’ No. Oral cultures have been capable of tremendous competence. The human mind can remember vast amounts of information with great accuracy when it remains active and fluid. The oral culture in which Jesus was reared trained their brightest children to remember entire libraries of story, law, poetry, song, etcetera.

In Jesus’ culture, there were different kinds of memory with different functions. Important stories, important sayings were not remembered casually. When a rabbi imparted something important to his disciples, the memory was expected to maintain a high degree of stability.

(pp. 70-71). Kindle Edition.

Whatever degree of skepticism one may bring to the unity of Jesus traditions over time, let us set aside “the game of telephone” as an analogy when teaching the subject. It is misleading at best.

More of Anthony Le Donne’s historical Jesus.

Several days ago I posted some excerpts from Anthony Le Donne’s Historical Jesus: What Can We Know and How Can We Know It? (see here) Here are some more statements that caught my eye:

“The first perceptions of Jesus were shaped by the external spurs and constraints unique to his historical context.”

(p. 23). Kindle Edition.

“Memory is the impression left by the past, not the preservation of it. In memory, we do not re-experience the past. What we experience is the impact left by the past.”

(pp. 24-25). Kindle Edition.

“External environments prompt the memories required to operate within them.”

(p. 29). Kindle Edition.

“History, as a discipline of knowledge, is not what happened in the past, it is an accounting of how the past was remembered and why. To confuse these is to confuse the very nature of the historian’s task.”

(p. 34). Kindle Edition.

“As remembrancer, the historian conveys to his audience what he believes is important for them to remember. In turn, the remembering community (the family, society, subculture, religious group, partisans, etc.) responds to the historical memory by accepting, rejecting, or ignoring it.”

(p. 35). Kindle Edition.

“The more significant a memory is, the more interpreted it will become. The great figures, moments, movements, and shifts of history will ever be shaped and reshaped by new interpretative contexts. History makes new impact with every telling. With every telling history is impacted.”

(p. 37). Kindle Edition.

“The uninterrupted past does not have beginnings, ends, transitional motifs, plot twists, and climaxes. These are elements that the historian projects and imposes upon the past to form a narrative worth telling.”

(p. 40). Kindle Edition.

“…when something is understood, it must be compared with a previously known category.”

(p. 57). Kindle Edition.

If you are wanting to think through issues of memory, interpretation, history proper, and the task of the historian, this is a great book to get you going. I’ve enjoyed it a lot and I am about half way through.

“Apologist” as a dismissive label.

There are some people who are self-designated apologists that I struggle to take seriously. I am skeptical of what they write because I sense that it is tainted with a misguided agenda. I imagine that if I sat down for coffee with one of these folks he would raise his voice until it got uncomfortable, then he’d storm out of the building if he couldn’t convince me of his position. I understand why people want to avoid these types.

Yet I think it has become a bit too easy to call someone with which one disagrees an “apologist” as if this automatically eliminates the responsibility to address their claims. Some figures whom I have seen unfairly labeled over the years include people like Richard Bauckham, Craig A. Evans, Larry Hurtado, Craig Keener, Michael Licona, and N.T. Wright among others. There is no denying that they are “conservative”, and it is possible that they use their scholarship at times for apologetical puposes, but a backhanded dismissal of their work because it is “apologetic” makes me lose confidence in the the accusers and not the accused.

In one SBL session this year Darrell L. Bock was asked how he could do good historical work considering his confessional stance in favor of inerrancy and dispensationalism. I share this concern with both of those paradigms. Personally, I think they can hinder good research. Yet I respected Bock’s response: Read by argument on the topic at hand and judge it’s merit.

I think it would be wrong for me to dismiss outright the work of an atheist or agnostic, e.g. Bart D. Ehrman. I may think that his presuppositions handicap his work, but that doesn’t automatically disqualify his argument. If I read what he writes and I find it unconvincing this may be because I think his presuppositions mislead him, but it should be the argument itself that I find flawed–not the person.

Sometimes critics of more conservative scholars come dangerously close to dismissing their colleagues ad hominem. This doesn’t make them look bad. It makes you look nervous.

Let me take two examples: Michael Licona’s reworked historiography regarding the resurrection of Jesus and Craig Keener’s regarding accounts of the miraculous. While I believe in both (A) the resurrection of Jesus and (B) miracles I admit that I wrestle with whether or not we can say much about these things when we agree to limit ourselves to the confines of historiography. I worry that there will be a bit too much “begging the question” involved and that some Christian scholars may ask for exceptions that they would not give Buddhist or Muslim scholars in an AAR meeting.

There does seem to be a place where historiography ends and philosophy and/or theology begins. At times the line is blurry and it is hard to know when you’ve crossed from one side to another. I am wrestling with this myself. Is there a place where as a historian I can say no more than, “Jesus’ followers really, really believed that he has risen from the dead. They thought this experience was physical and that he had a body both similar and dissimilar to his body before the crucifixion. Yet there is no way to know for sure what the disciples experienced.” Then as a Christian state, “I believe that the best explanation of the data is that God raised Jesus from the dead.”

I think the main factor is epistemology. How do we use the word “know” in relation to our historiography? Is this a very strict term that limits us to a list like that organized by E.P. Sanders where we know Jesus was a Jew, that he was affiliated with John the Baptist, that he was crucified, and a few other items. If so, then the projects of many scholars move quickly from the firm “knowables” to questions of plausibility. When I think of the projects of scholars like J.D. Crossan and Marcus Borg I think most of their work is spent in this area of reconstructing a Jesus that moves further and further away from what we can “know” about Jesus. This isn’t the project of conservative scholars alone.

One thing that Lynn Cohick emphasized at another SBL panel I attended is the need to be forthright with our presuppositions. This is what I respected most about Licona’s project. Wright’s books on the historical Jesus provide his philosophical approach as well. Some scholars seem to assume we are on the same page and they never tell the reader from where they are coming.

If one person dislikes another’s presuppositions there is room for that debate. Yet we cannot end conversation if we can’t agree on presuppositions. If someone is a confessing Christian who approaches their historiography from that angle they will bring their blind spots to their work, but so do other people with other views. At the end of the day it comes down to whether or not the argument is good or bad, whether it does a good job at explaining the data or not. We can’t ignore someone simply because they are a “conservative” or a “liberal”.

Book Review: The Stories of Jesus’ Birth by Edwin D. Freed.

Edwin D. Freed. The Stories of Jesus’ Birth: A Critical Introduction. New York: T&T Clark, 2001. (Amazon.com)

E.W. Freed, 'The Stories of Jesus' Birth'

Edwin D. Freed’s book on the Infancy Narratives of the Gospels is intended to function as an introduction to the subject. The author approaches the subject critically. It is a work that takes historiographical methodology seriously, though Freed doesn’t outlines his approach or premise other than the designation “critical”, which we can juxtapose with “confessional”. In other words, there is no apologetic element to this book. Freed is not aiming to defend the concept of a virgin conception or any other the other elements of the Infancy Narratives that seem abnormal (e.g. angelic annunciations).

Freed addresses some great topics. He investigates the genealogies of Jesus in Matthew and Luke. He gives special attention to the women included in Matthew’s genealogy and the apologetic purpose they served against those who may have questioned the legitimacy of Mary’s pregnancy. He compares Matthew and Luke. He examines how the Evangelist use the Hebrew Bible. Finally, he gives several chapters to the unique contributions of Matthew and Luke.

While reading this work I found myself thinking critically and widely about the approaches taken by the Evangelists. Freed does not try to harmonize the Gospels. If Matthew and Luke seem concerned to place Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem and John’s Gospel does not, so be it. He examines the possible motivations for decisions of inclusion and exclusion. In doing so, the reader is forced to think about the individual vantage points offered by the four canonical Gospels.

Freed does not address works like the Protevangelium of James. He limits his discussion to the four Gospels giving the most attention to Matthew and Luke. As an introduction he does not seem concerned with interacting with too many other authors. When he does it is with modern, critical scholarship. Most of his focus is on the most primary of primary sources.

This book’s great strength is introducing students to a critical historiographical approach to Jesus’ birth narratives. It allows them to ask the hard questions while wrestling with the consequences of the data. This is for whom it was written. It was not written as an interaction with other authors in the academy, but as a gateway into the subject for those who lack familiarity.

Another strength is that it gives the reader the opportunity to think through the various portions of the Gospels in relation to one another and as stand alone works. One will have the opportunity to ask why Matthew says something one way while Luke says it another or why Mark excludes content and John approaches it from a different angle. Likewise, Matthew and  Luke as a singular literary units are given the opportunity to speak for themselves. It is not the church’s doctrine of the virgin conception in the spotlight but the Matthean or Lukan presentations of the narrative.

It is hard to say there is a weakness. All “weaknesses” in my eyes would be the very things the author did not try to accomplish and it is hard to judge a book by goals it never claims to be reaching. So I don’t expect interaction with Christian thought and creeds. I don’t expect it to give the “other side” from confessing Christians. It doesn’t need to be full of footnotes interacting with other scholars. Actually, for that one may read Raymond Brown’s work on this subject since Freed interacts with Brown quite often. While it is not a popularization of Brown’s work, Freed does take his cue from Brown.

Overall it is a solid, shorter work (less than one hundred and seventy pages of content) and a fine introduction. Freed has provided a wonderful, short introduction to the critical study of Infancy Narratives. If one uses it for this purpose it is a great tool.

Anthony Le Donne’s historical Jesus.

Anthony Le Donne. Notice, his last name begins with "Le". Does this remind you of anyone?!

I am grateful to Nick Norelli who was adamant that I read Anthony Le Donne‘s Historical Jesus: What Can We Know and How Can We Know It? These are some excerpts from the early part of the book that have caught my attention:

“…it must be said that there is no need to draw a line between the text as a document of faith and the same text as a document of history. Those who attempt to arrive at a non-religious historical Jesus do not follow the advice of any contemporary philosophy of history. These interpreters do not strip away religious elements from the gospels because they are hostile to Christianity; they do so because they are poor historians.”

(p. 8). Kindle Edition.

“We can study Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John as literary units and also use these books as sources for the historical Jesus. One does not preclude the other.”

(p. 9). Kindle Edition.

“…even before Jesus became a historical figure, he was the object of people’s perceptions. In other words, people saw his actions, heard his words, felt his touch. Therefore it will be necessary to have some understanding of how perception functions. It is perception that shapes the nature of Jesus’ impact from the very beginning.”

(p. 15). Kindle Edition.

“My point is that every thought, conscious or subconscious, is the result of interpretation and has some relationship with the external world – other people, things, ideas.”

 (pp. 18-19). Kindle Edition.

“What is often overlooked is the fact that the NT was composed, for the most part, by deeply religious Jews. There are a few exceptions, but most of the books in the NT were composed by Jews, for Jews, about matters of Jewish theology. This is because Jesus’first followers, his first audiences, his first adversaries, and his first believers and skeptics were Jewish folk. So in order to understand Jesus’words, we must try to hear him as his contemporaries heard him.”

(p. 19). Kindle Edition.

“Perception is filtered through familiar thought categories. Indeed, interpretation requires that certain patterns of mental categorization are in place.”

(pp. 22-23). Kindle Edition.

As I continue to read this book I am sure I will share more. One thing is for sure, I regret not attending some sessions where Le Donne was a participant as SBL. Maybe next year!

 

Exile defined by E.W. Said.

Edward W. Said

This Sunday I will be preaching the homily for the Third Week of Advent on Matthew 2.13-15. In this passage Jesus is exiled to Egypt in preparation for his exodus back to the land of his people. These two themes of exile and exodus will be the focus of my sermon.

I read Edward W. Said‘s essay “Reflections of Exile” in preparation. This is the opening paragraph, which I find captures exile quite well (from Reflections on Exile and Other Essays, p. 173):

“Exile is strangely compelling to think about but terrible to experience. It is the unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home: its essential sadness can never be surmounted. And while it is true that literature and history contain heroic, romantic, glorious, and even triumphant episodes in an exile’s life, these are no more than efforts meant to overcome the crippling sorrow of estrangement. The achievements of exile are permanently undermined by the loss of something left behind forever.”

The story of the Jews is one of exile. Adam exiled from Eden. Abraham exiled from Ur. The children of Jacob from the land of Abraham because of famine. Israel exiled into Assyria. Judah exiled into Babylon. The Great Diaspora in 70 CE because of the Romans was the final, great exile.

Jesus’ exile into Egypt embodies this, yet Jesus experiences exodus as well. Exodus is the solution to exile. Abraham’s exile was his exodus as well. Moses led “the Exodus” out of Egypt. The Jews relived exodus out of Babylon. Jesus is the exodus.