The Third Quest for the Historical Jesus: A Case for its Necessity and Relevance.

(by Kim Thoday).

The idea of the historical Jesus is only conceivable post-Enlightenment. With the Enlightenment came a monochrome view of reality. Reality became that which could be explained by both reason and empirical verification. In the nineteenth century and for much of the twentieth century this ‘absolute truth’ about reality dominated secular Western thought. Consequently, the pre-modern Weltanschauung of the co-existence of two intersecting realities – an invisible spirit realm insolubly linked to the visible tangible world – has become marginal in much New Testament scholarhip, even with the rise of some postmodern hybrids. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries many leading thinkers envisioned that all of the so-called mysteries of existence could, or at least eventually would, be explained by scientific inquiry. These assumptions were to make a profound impact upon theology and biblical studies, particularly amongst the European biblical scholars of the period. If truth could only be verified by scientific analysis, then much in the biblical documents was irrelevant and belonged to a ‘primitive’ era that believed in irrational explanations and causalities.

Nevertheless, some biblical scholars postulated that beneath the layers of legendary traditions about Jesus in the NT, existed data that could be extricated to reconstruct the ‘real’ Jesus; that is, a Jesus without the mummification of centuries of mythmaking and doctrinal authority rooted in an ‘inferior,’ essentially superstitious view of reality. So the process began: to reconstruct a Jesus who would make sense to the modern ‘scientific’ mind; a Jesus who in fact would be superior to the ecclesiological presentations of him over the centuries. Here was a chance, by the light of pure reason, to actually rescue history’s most pre-eminent figure from the darkness of pre-criticism!

Hermann Samuel Reimarus (1694-1768) is usually credited as the first to attempt an historical critical investigation of Jesus.1 However, it was not until 1835 with the publication of David Friederich Strauss’ Life of Jesus, that the dislocating implications of historical critical method began to threaten the sacred foundations of the Church. Twenty or so years after Strauss, Ferdinand Christian Baur gave further momentum to the rise of higher biblical criticism in his attempt to comprehensively develop a modern philosophically based hermeneutic for interpreting the NT. Despite vitriolic protestations from some sections of the Church and NT scholarly circles of the time, liberal positivism continued to gain momentum in NT studies during the nineteenth century. Increasingly, liberal NT scholars tended to believe that Christianity could be purified by historically verifiable facts about Jesus. The underlying assumption was that scientific historical investigation was value-free and therefore their historically constructed Jesus would be the ‘real’ Jesus; the Jesus, a de-doctrinised Jesus.

Toward the end of the nineteenth century some NT scholars were beginning to perceive that the historian’s Jesus was not free from presupposition. Martin K ¤hler realised that all historical portraits of Jesus are in themselves relative. Albert Schweitzer recognised that the so-called objectified Jesus had emerged as a projection of nineteenth century utopian and humanitarian idealism. Jesus had been recreated in the image of those seeking to reconstruct him. Edward Schillebeeckx has correctly summarised the nineteenth century historian’s Jesus as: ‘a projection of ideal notions of humanity: Jesus became a kind of mascot, a symbolic X or cipher on to which nineteenth-century man could project his evolutionist and Utopian optimism …’2 This of course was more obvious with hindsight. Nevertheless, the lesson is paramount. We tend to recreate Jesus in our own image, according to the inherent assumptions of our era and the interpretative filters we use. This is likely to be a perennial phenomenon. Only after a major paradigm shift which relativises these assumptions can we appreciate with more acute perception our previous biases and limited vision. Therefore, our contemporary portraits of Jesus must remain open-ended. They must always contain the qualification that they remain incomplete; needing the new insights and the interpretative frameworks of future generations.

The death-knell for this first quest for the historical Jesus was sounded by the enigmatic Albert Schweitzer at the turn of this century. And its eulogy was composed by the great NT scholar Rudolf Bultmann who argued on form-critical grounds that in the NT we only have access to the Christ of the first-century communities of faith. However, it was a eulogy that did not close the case on the historical Jesus. Despite Bultmann’s historical skepticism, the actual existence of Jesus of Nazareth was still crucial for his understanding of biblical faith. For Bultmann, God had still acted decisively in Jesus of Nazareth. As Marcus Borg has recently reminded us, the “thatness” of Jesus was fundamental to Bultmann’s understanding of Christian theology. ‘That is, only that Jesus existed and was crucified matters, not the what of his historical life’ [Borg’s italics].3 Even then, Bultmann still argued that there was a reasonable amount we could know about the what of Jesus’ message, though only through the process of de-mythologisation. Bultmann asserted that: ‘Little as we know of his life and personality, we know enough of his message to make for ourselves a consistent picture.’4 Students of Bultmann, such as Ernst K ¤semann, honed in on Bultmann’s caveat to the end of the Jesus quest, and began a second quest: reasserting the knowability of Jesus’ message and its centrality for Christian theology. Borg correctly argues that the scholarly concentration of the second quest upon the message of Jesus, interpreted against an existentialist philosophical framework, resulted in an individualised, privatised, formulaic Jesus, divorced from his social setting; the corollary of which, was a similar view of the essence of Christianity.5

During the 1980s up until the present, a third quest for the historical Jesus has emerged.6 It is quite distinguishable from the second quest in that it is far more confident about being able to reconstruct the basic outlines of Jesus’ ministry. It recognises that a focus purely upon Jesus’ teaching is to disembody it and distort it. It recognises that the Gospels recount Jesus’ teaching as an integral part of his mission strategy that directly engaged the social and political world around him.7 I would argue that Latin American liberation theology has also played an important role in sensitising recent Western NT scholarship to these neglected dimensions of the NT. The more intuitive approach by two thirds-world scholars has received decisive support from the contemporary use of sociological and anthropological approaches with typological studies of religious figures in Western NT scholarship.8 The interdisciplinary quest for the historical Jesus has been given further impetus by the ‘discovery, publication and analysis of new archaeological and manuscript material.’ 9 Borg accurately remarks: ‘We simply know more about the world of first-century Palestine than earlier generations of scholars did.’10

Another important delineation of the third quest is that it has moved beyond primarily asking questions of the biblical text from theological or doctrinal starting points. The other quests for the historical Jesus attempted to analyse the extent of continuity between the ‘central’ dogmatic traditions of the Church and the message of the historical Jesus. Symptomatic of this is the tendency not to work within the limits of the NT canon, but, somewhat reminiscent of the history of religions school, to also examine and treat as seriously, other first-century documents for their perspectives on the historical Jesus. Borg argues that this situation is largely a reflection of the fact that many scholars now teach in the more secular settings of universities and colleges. Therefore, students are likely raise very different questions of the biblical texts. Borg states: ‘Instead, the questions have become more “global,” that is, related to the broad sweep of human history and experience.’11

One of the most significant shifts of the third quest, is the proclivity to reconstruct a non-eschatalogical and non-apocalyptic historical Jesus. Stephen J Patterson rightly maintains that the notion of both Johannes Weiss and Schweitzer that Jesus was an apocalytpic preacher who expected the imminent eschaton, ‘… has been the dominant paradigm for understanding Jesus for most of the twentieth century.’12 Patterson analyses the recent developments in the historical-critical research that have brought into question the Weiss-Schweitzer hypothesis.13 He argues that the apocalyptic Jesus has been undermined because of the recent studies in the Gospels of Q and Thomas which have identified the earliest bedrock Jesus tradition as aphoristic-sapiential sayings. Using a classic form critical approach, Q and Thomas scholars have attempted to reconstruct the kind of communities which used such material as foundational to their movements. Unlike the original form-critics, however, these scholars have been greatly assisted by sociopolitical, anthropological and typological models of historical reconstruction. Patterson also argues that the image of an apocalyptic Jesus was progressively challenged by post-Bultmanian scholars such as Philipp Vielhauer, Hans Conzelmann and Ernst K ¤semann. Their studies, generally, emphasised the present, ‘here and now’ nature of the reign (kingdom) of God in Jesus’ proclamation.14 Furthermore, he argues that Amos Wilder’s study of Jesus’ parables similarly highlighted an understanding of God’s new order breaking into the present; rather than at an indeterminable future time. I would add that an existentialist view of reality also played an important role in this paradigm shift away from the notion of Jesus as the herald of a future apocalyptic eschaton.

Marcus Borg offers some useful suggestions about these slippery terms eschatalogical and apocalyptic. He firstly stresses that there is as yet no consensus amongst scholars in this movement away from the old consensus of a future-oriented apocalyptic Jesus. He reckons on historical Jesus scholarship being about equally divided over the question, with the scales now just tipped in favour of a non-eschatalogical Jesus.15 However, he reminds us that there are many significant scholars who affirm different variations of the older consensus. Part of the difficulty, explains Borg, is the difficulty of terminology. Most of the confusion appears to surround the definition of the term: eschatalogical. Borg traces how this word has been used in the history of NT scholarship. In contemporary usage, Borg shows that ‘eschatology’ can be used in a technical sense or in a broad sense. In the former way it can be used as in ancient Jewish eschatologies, to speak of a future time when God intervenes in history and radically transforms the world (the cosmos). Or, in the latter sense it is often used to describe some very important event such as the abolition of the Berlin Wall. In the broad sense, Borg rightly argues that the category becomes almost meaningless as a Gestalt for Jesus because there is hardly anything unique in such an ‘eschatalogical’ view. Thus, when he describes the increasing scholarly move away from an eschatalogical Jesus, this refers to a movement away from the more technical understanding of an apocalyptic figure; one for who the expectation of a future apocalyptic divine intervention is central to his or her worldview and praxis. Borg concludes that in his estimation of Jesus, this particular kind of echatalogical expectation was not central.16

Most of the above distinguishing characteristics of the latest quest are evident in controversial Jesus Seminar, of which Borg is an important participant and protagonist. Undoubtedly the third quest for the historical Jesus has been given decisive drive by this North American Seminar. However, the Historical Section of the Society of Biblical Literature, which was initiated in 1981, ought not to be overlooked for its vital contribution.17 Since 1985, the Jesus Seminar, founded by Robert Funk, with its membership of well over one hundred scholars, met twice yearly for multi-day seminars. In the first five years, a project was undertaken by the Seminar to attempt to come to a consensual scholarly opinion on authentic sayings of Jesus from all available source material written before 300 CE.18 As Borg notes, this is this first collegial systematic investigation of the Jesus tradition.19

The Seminar’s strategy involved discussion and debate upon the relevant texts followed by a system of graded voting by each participating scholar. Borg describes the process of voting thus: Voting involves casting one of four differently colored beads (red, pink, gray, or black) into a ballot box, with the four colors representing a descending degree of historical probability: a red vote means that a saying is thought to be the voice of the community (and not Jesus), with pink and gray being “in between” votes.20

A red vote means, “I think these are the authentic words of Jesus”; pink means, “A close approximation of what Jesus said”; gray means, “Not Jesus’ words, though they may reflect his ideas”; and black means, “Inauthentic; definitely not spoken by Jesus.”21

The end product of this first project has been the publication of a new translation of the Gospels, including the Gospel of Thomas, using the same colour coding for sayings attributed to Jesus in the Gospel tradition. At the end of 1993, this work was published as The Five Gospels: The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus.22 After that time, the Jesus Seminar continued its research into a second phase. Using a similar approach to the first project, the next process was one of voting upon the degree of historicity of the various events of Jesus life and ministry (the deeds of Jesus) that have been transmitted in the various Jesus traditions.23

Overall the Jesus Seminar has grabbed considerable media attention. Typical of the sort of media coverage was an article in Time early in January 1994, entitled, ‘Jesus Christ, Plain and Simple.’24 Being true to its popularist genre the article hones in upon several isolated statements of individual members of the Seminar and makes it appear as if their positions are representative of the whole. The article paints a picture of the Seminar as an organisation intent upon treading upon the scared beliefs of the faithful for the sake of ‘theatre.’25 Furthermore, it reveals a distinct lack of understanding about the purpose of the Seminar, especially in the explanation of the voting being an indication ‘… of which lines of Christ were holier than others.’26 The article concludes with quotes from three scholars who are highly critical of the Seminar. For instance, Jacob Neusner is quoted as claiming that the Jesus Seminar is: ‘ “either the greatest scholarly hoax since the Piltdown Man or the utter bankruptcy of New Testament studies – I hope the former.” ’27

Capitalising on the media hype about the Jesus Seminar, HarperCollins Publishers ran a three-way email debate on the historical Jesus, between three well-known NT scholars. This debate took place over a seven week period in early 1996. Archival material of this debate is still available on the internet web site at HarperCollins.28 It was a debate between two prominent Fellows of the Jesus Seminar, John Dominic Crossan, Marcus Borg and a well known critic of the Seminar, Luke Timothy Johnson. Johnson himself had received some publicity with the recent publication of his book with its hardly subtle title: The Real Jesus: The Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus and the truth of the Traditional Gospels.29

The following is a brief summary and critique of the debate. Borg correctly identifies Johnson’s two main criticism’s of the Seminar in his book, The RealJesus, as having a) produced an inadequate picture of the historical Jesus and b) embarked upon an irrelevant program because the Gospel portrayal of Jesus is the ‘real’ Jesus.30 In response Johnson defends the basic tenet of his book which is that history is not the same as reality.31 That is, Johnson rightly argues that ‘reality’ is much more than the scientific study of past events. I would also hold that historical investigation, as with any scientific methodology can and does offer important perspectives upon what has occurred, but not in its totality. Human experience recognises that reality is not just the some total of measurable historical causes and effects but is also a matter, for instance, of intense feelings of love and hate or of the transcendence of the divine or evil. But these elements of reality require a different way of viewing and experiencing. Johnson seems to conclude that historical reconstructions will never be able to provide an adequate picture of the ‘real’ Jesus. For Johnson, the Jesus who is depicted in the NT writings, from the vantage point of the faith of the early Jesus movements (a dimension not measurable by historical analysis) provides a far more holistic representation of his true nature. On this basis, Johnson regards the process of dissecting and peeling back the layers of Jesus tradition so as to extract the original Jesus as fundamentally flawed.

John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg, I think, adequately address Johnson’s critique. Both agree with Johnson that the real Jesus cannot be equated with a historical reconstruction of Jesus. Crossan asserts: ‘Were I myself to use the term “the real Jesus” I too would use it to mean the Jesus of 2000 years of Christian faith.’32 Borg, in addressing Johnson, states: ‘I agree with your frequent references to the importance of the resurrection. And I like the ways you speak about it: Jesus “as a living presence to the world even to this day; it is ‘the experience of the risen Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit, through the continuing religious experiences of people in the world;’ and ‘Jesus’ presence continues in a way more powerful than mere memory or reconstruction.” ’33 Yet where they rightly take issue with Johnson is over his assumption that they are in fact positing that their reconstructions of the historical Jesus reconsititute a genuine or superior or real Jesus. Such a typically modernist conceptual framework does not appear to be their position. In Jesus in Contemporary Scholarship, Borg asserts that the Jesus Seminar is not at all so misguided or arrogant. He states: The seminar is aware, of course, that one cannot actually determine what Jesus said by voting. Voting cannot settle historical questions, and majorities (even consensus majorities) are sometimes wrong. Moreover, we know that the votes on some of the sayings would likely be quite different ten or twenty years from now (just as the votes on some would have been different twenty or thirty years ago). What the voting does do, however, is to measure current scholarly opinion. It discloses the degree to which there is presently a consensus within this group of scholars.34

Johnson’s argument is revealed more concretely in his use of an analogy of Mother Theresa. He maintains: If I were quizzed about Mother Theresa’s birthplace, age, language, career moves, I may well be wrong on every count. I am certain that I know none of her sayings, and have only a vague grasp of her specific deeds. Yet, if I say that “Mother Theresa has lived a life of service to the poor in India during my lifetime in a way that has made her a symbol of selfish devotion,” I would come close to capturing her historical character and significance. In contrast, if I knew every one of her words and deeds, and had all the facts perfectly, yet said, “While posing as a lowly nun, Mother Theresa worked to overthrow the Indian government by establishing cells of local resistence,” I would miss the most important thing about her, the meaning of her life, both for herself and those who knew her.35

Johnson regards the latter scenario as representing the quest for the historical Jesus. However, surely historical information about Mother Theresa, to take the analogy further, adds to our understanding of the kind of service to the poor she offered. Was she involved politically or did she limit her involvement to immediate welfare or both? Just how she interacted with her historical, theological, social and political environment is of profound importance for understanding who she was and what she represents. Johnson admits that he knows none of her sayings and only vaguely of her deeds. But surely knowledge of these would result in fuller picture of the person. Who would place very much confidence in the reports of Mother Theresa via the popular media or press? Furthermore, Johnson does not detail how it is that he has come to this understanding of her character. Our impressions of anybody do not materialise out of some ahistorical vacuum. It is likely that Johnson is right, Mother Theresa did serve the poor in India. But how do we know that for sure; and again, if she did, in what way did she serve the poor; were there negative sides to this ministry as well as the positives that the Western press has focussed upon? Historical research is one important tool to reassess the significance of her life. So it is with the significance of Jesus. Crossan, asks Johnson the perceptive question: ‘How do you know which is the proper understanding of Mother Theresa apart from historical reconstruction in public discourse?’36 Johnson appears not able to answer this fundamental question which lies at the heart of the historical Jesus quest. Who Jesus was, what he said and how he ministered are critical elements as part of our understanding of the significance of Jesus. However, we can only begin to answer these questions through the historical investigation of the extant materials that contain the Jesus tradition.

Crossan rightly suggests that a more refined historical picture of Mother Theresa, as with Jesus of Nazareth, makes a qualitative leap of difference. In the case of Jesus of Nazareth, he argues it is not enough to conclude, as does Johnson, that Jesus of Nazareth was obedient to God and gave his life in service to others. This claim is far too generic. It does not really tell as anything specific, let alone anything unique about the One that Christianity proclaims as the manifestation of God. Furthermore, such a description is not sufficiently grounded in the social and political context of Jesus’ ministry. Such a broad generalised statement domesticates and sanitises, in fact, dehumanises Jesus. Broad categorisations of persons reduce them to ahuman, uninvolved, abstractions. Historical criticism of ancient figures such as Jesus, especially with the more recent use of sociopolitical and anthropological tools of analysis, can assist in reassessing popular and scholarly caricatures. Using just such a multidisciplinary approach, Crossan explains that his reconstruction of the historical Jesus would necessitate an additional line to Johnson’s characterisation of Jesus; namely, that Jesus served others ‘…by living out the radical justice of Israel’s God and inviting others to do likewise in a situation of increasing imperial oppression, colonial collaboration, and peasant dispossession, [Crossan’s capitalised emphasis].37 This, I would argue, offers us the important information of the concrete nature of Jesus’ ministry in the social and political situation of the day. If, as most Christians maintain, Jesus of Nazareth was somehow God’s physical presence on earth, then how this figure lived and ministered historically becomes of critical importance. If Jesus represents God’s involvement with creation, with humanity, then what Jesus said and did becomes a centrifugal point for comprehending the meaning of that involvement.

Crossan justifies the quest for the historical Jesus by rightly arguing that a precedent is set within the NT itself. He argues that Christian theology has always earthed itself in the tradition about Jesus of Nazareth; that is, the Jesus of the 20s CE. Crossan attempts to simplify this phenomenon with the formulation of: Jesus THEN (the Jesus of the 20s) and Jesus NOW (the experience of the risen Jesus of the 40s and onwards), [Crossan’s capitalised emphasis]. Crossan argues that the later NT writings: the Synoptic Gospels particularly, and the other NT writings by quite divergent degree, are representative of Jesus NOW but view their present experience of Jesus in relation to Jesus THEN. The Synoptic Gospels show this tendency most clearly, in that the author’s contemporary concerns are now read into the remembered traditions concerning Jesus of Nazareth. Or, to put in reverse, the stories and traditions of Jesus THEN are retold and recast to address the sometimes quite changed circumstances of the later generations of disciples; such as those reflected in the narrative Gospels. However, the historical element is never lost; the dialectic between the Jesus of history and the experience of the risen Jesus is maintained.

So down through the centuries, the stories and sayings of Jesus’ earthly life have always been of fundamental importance; often on a par with the importance of his Resurrection. One has only to look back through the works of Church art and of many artistic works of the great masters, to recognise just how powerful the stories of Jesus life and ministry have been for the human imagination. The only difference now, after the impact of historical analysis during this century, is that we are more acutely aware of the various degrees of historicity of different parts of the Jesus tradition. For instance, some parts of the Jesus tradition, such as the Johannine ‘I am’ sayings, are now regarded by a majority of scholars as reflecting the voice of John’s community rather than being words or concepts used by Jesus.38 On the other hand, scholars suggest that much of the sayings material in the Synoptic Gospel’s is likely to bear a very close resemblance to the words and sometimes actions of Jesus of Nazareth. As yet there is still much scholarly disagreement and debate over the historical accuracy of certain parts of the Jesus tradition, such as the birth and passion narratives. However, the essential point is that down through the history of the Church, Christian theology and practice has always ideally sought to be earthed in the life, ministry, death, as well as the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. And, furthermore, even without the assistance of historical tools of analysis, the important contours of Jesus’ essential character have been intuited by certain believers over the centuries. Constructions of Jesus’ life and ministry have been fundamental to faith, even without the benefit of scientific analysis, and even though the process has likely often been unconscious. This unconscious process is obviated in the Gospels themselves; it accounts for the Gospel genre. This process is part of Christian origins and earliest Christian identity.

The current quest for the historical Jesus continues this ancient tradition albeit in a new key to speak to modern and postmodern communities: to earth Christian theology and practice within the parameters of the historic mission of Jesus of Nazareth. However, the third quest does so consciously and with a continually more refined methodolgy. Its methodological consciousness is an important development for the sake of intellectual honesty. In other words, it is of great importance to continue to critique the presuppositions inherent in the ways we construct our images of Jesus. If we allow ourselves open-ended, inter-disciplinary methodologies, such an approach can only result in a fuller and more informed picture of Jesus of Nazareth. It is such a process constantly confronts, challenges and affirms our pre-disposition to reconstruct Jesus after our own image. This process, nevertheless, is not the final adjudicator upon the ‘real’ nature of Jesus, as we have already noted. For one, this would be to usurp the equally important role of the Holy Spirit in imparting wisdom and knowledge about God and indeed about the kind of person Jesus was and is. Nevertheless, at the same time, a culturally relevant and exegetically reconstructed image of the basic contours of Jesus’ ministry and teaching is a necessary gestalt for assessing the legitimacy of contemporary revelation and experience which Christians attribute to the Spirit of the risen Jesus (the Holy Spirit). The activity of the Holy Spirit must be experienced as in continuity with the revelation of God in the Jesus of history.

History, ancient and more recent, bears witness to the terrible distortions of Christianity, once an historic picture of Jesus is no longer authoritative and experience alone becomes the dominant factor. The Jonestown massacre in Guyana and the Waco siege in Texas are two extreme but iconoclastic examples of Christianity that has lost its anchorage in the historical Jesus. A more common example for Christianity in Australia (but especially in North America) has been the tendency by some influential leaders to embrace hierarchical, triumphalist and corporatist distortions of Christianity which stand in antithesis to the Jesus of history.39 Crossan is correct in inferring that the dialectic tension between the Jesus of history and the risen Jesus of experience was intrinsic to the Jesus tradition within the NT and must continue to be preserved in culturally appropriate ways for contemporary Christian ministry, mission and evangelism.40

I believe that as we move into the third millenium, it will be paramount for Church leaders to continue to struggle and grapple with the Jesus of history / Christ of faith dialectic. To be able to articulate who Jesus IS and how he is relevant, how it is that he is our ‘window on God’ for NOW, for our communities of faith and for the world around us is of critical importance. The third quest for the historical Jesus is an important, developing, set of tools to – at one and the same time – keep us honest, relevant and catholic; that is, an extension of those trajectories of the historical Church throughout the ages which have recognised in one way or another the trinitarian umbilical connection between the Jesus who lived, the nature of God and the Christian experience.

Blessings,

KIM THODAY HEWETT COMMUNITY CHURCH OF CHRIST, SOUTH AUSTRALIA

http://www.hewett.org.au

(Footnotes)

1 Historians are increasingly aware that historical events, turning points and new movements in history, arise as developments of past events and ideas. Nothing occurs ex nilio, is almost an historian’s maxim. While certain events or highly influential people, for instance, can act as the primary ‘triggers’ for new historical movements, a multiplicity of previous hsitorical developments prepare the necessary circumstances to give potency to the ‘triggers.’ This was the case with Reimarus. While he came to be the recognised as the initiator of the ‘first’ quest for the historical Jesus, others had earlier paved the way. See Colin Brown, Jesus in European Protestant Thought (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1985), pp.29-55. 2 Jesus: An Experiment (1983), p.67. 3 Marcus Borg, Jesus in Contemporary Scholarship, (Pennsylvania: Trinity Press International, 1994), p.187. (= Jesus in Contemporary)

4 Jesus and the Word (1958), pp. 16-17. 5 Jesus in Contemporary (1994), p.6. 6 N Thomas Wright and Stephen Neill, The Interpretation of the New Testament: 1861-1986 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), pp.379-403. 7 Jesus in Contemporary (1994), p.12. 8 Daniel Harrington, ‘Second Testament Exegesis and the Social Sciences: A Bibliography,’ in Biblical Theological Bulletin 18 (1988), pp.77-85. Harrington lists more than 250 NT studies that make use of socialogical methods. See also Jesus in Contemporary (1994), pp.12, 27. 9 Jesus in Contemporary (1994), p. 19. 10 Jesus in Contemporary (1994), p.10. 11 Jesus in Contemporary (1994), p.6. 12 Stephen J Patterson, ‘The End of Apocalypse: Rethinking the Eschatalogical Jesus,’ in Theology Today, April 1995, Vol.52, no.1, pp.31-2. (= The End ). Patterson offers a fascinating explanation as to why the apocalyptic thesis of Weiss was largely unacceptable in the 1890s and why it came to be accepted widely after Schweitzer’s restatement of it in the politically volatile environment of the years immediately preceeding WW1. 13 The End (1995), pp.35-41. 14 The End (1995), p.39. 15 Jesus in Contemporary (1994), pp. 59-60, 69. 16 Jesus in Contemporary (1994), p.73. 17 Jesus in Contemporary (1994), p.6. 18 Jesus in Contemporary (1994), p.156, note 5. 19 Jesus in Contemporary (1994), p.6. 20 Jesus in Contemporary (1994), p.156, note 5. 21 Jesus in Contemporary (1994), p.160. 22 Robert Funk, The Five Gospels: The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus, (New York: Macmillan Publishers, 1993). 23 Jesus in Contemporary (1994), p.163. 24 Richard N Ostling, ‘Jesus Christ, Plain and Simple,’ in Time:The Weekly Newsmagazine, January 10, 1994, pp.38-40. (= Jesus Christ)

25 Jesus Christ (1994), p.39. 26 Jesus Christ (1994), p.39. 27 Jesus Christ (1994), pp.39-40. 28 29 Luke Timothy Johnson, The Real Jesus: The Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus and the Truth of the Traditional Gospels (San Francisco: HarperCollins Publishers, 1996). Johnson’s basic thesis in this work is that a scholarly reconstruction of the historical Jesus will not provide an adequate base for Christian faith. Rather he maintains that central to Christianity is the resurrected Jesus of the NT writings and of Christian experience. 30 Marcus Borg, Jesus Debate on Email, (, 22/2/96). 31 Luke T Johnson, Jesus Debate on Email, (, 26/2/96). 32 Jesus Debate on Email, ([email protected], 28/2/96). 33 Jesus Debate on Email, (, 28/2/96). 34 Jesus in Contemporary (1994), p.163. 35 Jesus Debate on Email, (, 26/2/96). 36 Jesus Debate on Email, ([email protected], 28/2/96). 37 Jesus Debate on Email, (, 28/2/96). 38 Jesus in Contemporary (1994), p.173. Borg explains that the majority of Jesus Seminar votes cast concerning the ‘I am’ sayings in the Gospel of John were black votes. Thus most Seminar scholars considered these sayings unlikely to have been articulated by Jesus of Nazareth. Borg rightly points out, however, that this seemingly negative claim, need not be negative at all. To put it another way, Jesus tradition that is not grounded in the historical Jesus, but rather is a product of later Christological reflection, is no less important (no less a mark of the ‘real’ Jesus) than material which can be attributed with some degree of certainty as deriving from the earthly Jesus. ‘Black’ material gives us important information concerning the various Christological developments of the early Jesus movements and congregations. It gives us both an idea of how the later generations of Jesus followers experienced the risen Christ and insights into the continuity/discontinuity between post-Easter experience and the pre-Easter Jesus. 39 In Churches of Christ a classic example is the uncritical acceptance of corporatist approaches to Christianity by a certain group known euphemistically as the Senior Ministers. 40 Jesus Debate on Email, (, 19/2/96).