McKnight Turns to the Historical Jesus

Scot McKnight has followed his illuminating series of posts on the "New Perspective on Paul" with an equally illuminating series on Historical Jesus research, which concludes with nine general points for the reader. Mark Goodacre responded to these final points with a number of minor critiques, several of which I would second (e.g., his argument that some scholars are more effective than others in their attempts to objectively and dispassionately produce an historical reconstruction of Jesus). A few additional observations and comments of my own:

McKnight's fourth point is as follows: "I don’t think historical Jesus has any place in theological studies for the Church. To bracket off one’s theological views in order to study the historical Jesus and then to do theological studies on top of that bracketed-off-study-of-Jesus is a vicious circular argument. You won’t find the Church’s Jesus this way because you’ve decided the Church’s Jesus isn’t allowed at the table! Historical Jesus studies is for historians." While his warnings against circular arguments are well taken, it seems to me that our evolving conceptions of who Jesus really was--what he said, did, didn't say, didn't do, etc.--can and should have a profound effect on the church which is supposedly fundamentally based on his life and teachings. The Church's Jesus and the Historical Jesus may not always be one and the same, but they can communicate with one another, and learn from one another.

And his fifth point: "still, nearly every historical Jesus scholar I know--and I know most of them--believes in the portrait of Jesus they construct on the basis of the historical methods. John Dominic Crossan and Marc Borg and Tom Wright and Dick Horsley et al believe, so it seems to me, in the Jesus they have constructed. (We all do this, don’t we?)" Goodacre objects, and again points to Sanders as a pertinent example. The key to this question is one's understanding of the term "believe." If it is to be understood from a religio-spiritual perspective, then I would agree with Goodacre, and add additional examples such as Bart Ehrman (as I don't think an avowed agnostic can "believe" in Jesus in this way!). If it is to be understood from a more empirical perspective, then I would be more inclined to agree with McKnight. It is to be expected that researchers believe in the results they achieve. Thus the research process must be carefully regulated and comprehensively executed, in order to obtain a result worth believing in.

And, finally, his sixth point: "historical Jesus studies have waned significantly in the last ten years. The hey day was the 80s and 90s but the creative work has been done, climaxing perhaps in Tom Wright’s big book, and mostly the conversation has grown stale. What used to attract hundreds to academic sessions now attracts 30 or 40." Goodacre essentially agrees, and adds that "[t]here is so much of it; it is so much in the mainstream that it has become somewhat less exciting. I am tempted to add that I have not seen anything in twenty years that begins to approach Sanders' Jesus and Judaism for stimulation and interest, but then I really would sound like a Johnny-one-note." Here I find myself disagreeing with both of my esteemed colleagues. McKnight suggests that the climax of recent Historical Jesus research is Tom Wright's "big book" (which I assume is Jesus and the Victory of God, released in 1997). However, both McKnight and Goodacre fail to mention John P. Meier's magisterial Marginal Jew series, the most recent of which was released in 2001 (the third volume, with another volume forthcoming). For my money, these are the definitive volumes on the Historical Jesus, and they are every bit as stimulating and interesting as Jesus and Judaism, albeit in a slightly different vein. McKnight mentions the work of Paula Fredericksen and Amy-Jill Levine, but doesn't mention that their work is relatively recent as well (Fredericksen's Jesus of Nazareth: King of the Jews was first published in 1999; Levine's The Misunderstood Jew was first published last year). Last fall I took a seminar course with Adela Collins entitled "The Historical Jesus"; it was one of the largest seminars I've taken at Yale. There's still a great deal of interest in the Historical Jesus, and if some of that interest is outside the academy, so much the better.

Take a look at all these intriguing posts (and Goodacre's responses) and see what you think!

RBL Highlights: 8/17/07

A few highlights from this week's Review of Biblical Literature:

François Bovon
Luke the Theologian: Fifty-Five Years of Research (1950-2005)
Reviewed by Christoph Stenschke

Trevor J. Burke
Adopted into God's Family: Exploring a Pauline Metaphor
Reviewed by Mary L. Coloe

C. D. Elledge
Life after Death in Early Judaism: The Evidence of Josephus
Reviewed by Daniel Maoz

Ehud Netzer
The Architecture of Herod, the Great Builder
Reviewed by Peter Richardson

Séamus O'Connell
From Most Ancient Sources: The Nature and Text-Critical Use of the Greek Old Testament Text of the Complutensian Polyglot Bible
Reviewed by Anneli Aejmelaeus

Abraham Wasserstein and David Wasserstein
The Legend of the Septuagint: From Classical Antiquity to Today
Reviewed by John Mason

More NT Titles From Dove

More recent New Testament offerings from Dove Booksellers' Used Book Department:

Aland, Kurt; Barbara Aland
TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
(Wm B Eerdmans Publishing Co, 1988)
Condition: VG Dust Jacket Condition: VG Hardcover $16.00
Comments: DJ

Bell, H Idris; T C Skeat
FRAGMENTS OF AN UNKNOWN GOSPEL AND OTHER EARLY CHRISTIAN PAPYRI
(British Museum, 1935)
Condition: GC Hardcover $30.00
Comments: Shelfworn, frayed at head and tail of spine

Bruce, F F
BIBLICAL EXEGESIS IN THE QUMRAN TEXTS
(Wm B Eerdmans Publishing Co, 1959)
Condition: VG Hardcover $24.00
Comments: DJ

Charlesworth, James H
JESUS' JEWISHNESS: EXPLORING THE PLACE OF JESUS IN EARLY JUDAISM
(Crossroad Publishing, 1991)
Condition: VG Hardcover $22.00
Comments: DJ

Childs, Brevard S
NEW TESTAMENT AS CANON: AN INTRODUCTION
(Fortress, 1985)
Condition: NF Dust Jacket Condition: VG Hardcover $30.00
Comments: DJ

Davies, W D
JEWISH AND PAULINE STUDIES
(Fortress, 1984)
Condition: VG Hardcover $25.00
Comments: DJ

Farmer, William R
MACCABEES, ZEALOTS AND JOSEPHUS: AN INQUIRY INTO JEWISH NATIONALISM IN THE GRECO-ROMAN PERIOD
(Columbia University Press, 1956)
Condition: VG Hardcover $28.00
Comments: DJ

Farmer, William R
SYNOPTIC PROBLEM: A CRITICAL REVIEW OF THE PROBLEM OF THE LITERARY RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN MATTHEW, MARK, AND LUKE
(Macmillan, 1964)
Condition: VG Hardcover $18.00
Comments: Owner stamp on ffep, title page; DJ

Kummel, Werner Georg
NEW TESTAMENT: THE HISTORY OF THE INVESTIGATION OF ITS PROBLEMS
(Abingdon Press, 1972)
Condition: VG Hardcover $30.00
Comments: DJ

Lake, Kirsopp
EARLIER EPISTLES OF ST PAUL: THEIR MOTIVE AND ORIGIN
(Rivingtons, 1911)
Condition: VG Hardcover $30.00

Ludemann, Gerd
HERETICS: THE OTHER SIDE OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY
(Westminster John Knox, 1996)
Condition: VG Hardcover $20.00

Meier, John P
MARGINAL JEW: RETHINKING THE HISTORICAL JESUS, VOLUME 1: THE ROOTS OF THE PROBLEM AND THE PERSON
(Bantam Doubleday Dell, 1991)
Condition: VG Dust Jacket Condition: VG Hardcover $23.00
Comments: DJ

Moore, Stephen D
LITERARY CRITICISM AND THE GOSPELS
(Yale University Press, 1989)
Condition: VG Hardcover $20.00
Comments: DJ

Sanders, E P; Magaret Davies
STUDYING THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS
(Trinity Press International, 1989)
Condition: GC Paperback $20.00
Comments: Front cover, text creased at fore edge

Smith, Morton
SECRET GOSPEL: THE DISCOVERY AND INTERPRETATION OF THE SECRET GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MARK
(Harper & Row, 1973)
Condition: VG Hardcover $20.00
Comments: DJ

Tischendorf, Constantine
NOVUM TESTAMENTUM GRAECE (2 VOLS BOUND TOGETHER, 7TH ED)
(Adolph Winter, 1859)
Condition: GC Hardcover $40.00
Comments: Half-leatherm very worn but intact; faint dampstain to text along front and bottom edges

Weaver, Walter P
HISTORICAL JESUS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY: 1900-1950
(Trinity Press International, 1999)
Condition: VG Paperback $19.00

BAR Highlights: 8/16/07

More recent archaeological news from Biblical Archaeology Review:

Saving History or Criminal Activity?
In September 2005, Israeli professor Hanan Eshel was suspected of trading antiquities and purchasing stolen goods. Although no charges were filed and the matter languished, one lawyer is demanding that the Israel Antiquities Authority be held accountable for cutting the nearly-2,000-year-old scroll that Eshel obtained.

Death on View
Royal graves in Alacahöyük, in the province of Çorum, Turkey, near the Black sea, will be on view for tourists. Replicas of the tombs will offer visitors a chance to see how the royals were buried and what treasures accompanied them.

Unexpected Find at Tiberias
The Israel Antiquities Authority’s excavation at Tiberias has uncovered a mosaic on the floor of a Byzantine church with a surprising inscription that contradicts an earlier theory about Jews and Christians in Tiberias.

Fruit Baskets: Popular Then and Now
A sixth-century B.C.E. floor mosaic showing trees and fruit baskets has been uncovered at Yavneh Yam, an ancient archaeological seaport 15 miles south of Jaffa.

Cursing Like the Ancients
Archaeologists may have found exceptional curse tablets in Lincolnshire, England, dating to a time of political turmoil under the Roman empire.

Tanning in Rome
An ancient tannery has been uncovered in the outskirts of Rome, but it is now threatened by railway construction. The complex, at 3,345 square feet, is the largest discovered in the city.

Car vs. God

I've pulled some tough all-nighters and taken some frustrating classes, but I don't think that I've ever considered this course of action as a possible outlet:

Deputies: Man 'Mad At God' Drives Into Church
St. Augustine Man Accused Of Criminal Mischief

Fortunately, it doesn't appear that anyone was injured.

Key Stendhal Essay Available Online

Mark Goodacre notes that Krister Stendhal's seminal essay "Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West" is now available online via The Paul Page. In many ways, Stendhal's work blazed a trail for Sanders, Dunn, and others who followed. I read this article for the first time last spring as part of Judy Gundry-Volf's class on Paul, and found it to be as good as advertised. Check it out!

UMC Cotillion?

An article posted on the website of the Kentucky Conference of the United Methodist Church proclaims, "New Tone Set for Conversation, Debate at 2008 Methodist General Conference." In preparation for the upcoming conference (the denomination's chief policy-making body, scheduled to meet in Fort Worth April 23-May 2), a task force has prepared a brief set of rules entitled "Guidelines for Holy Conferencing: What God Expects of Us." I suspect that fears of a devastating schism over homosexuality, magnified by the continuing state of affairs in the Episcopal Church in America and the Anglican Communion, motivated this course of action. So... will it succeed? Only time will tell, but at the moment I have doubts. While it is certainly worthwhile to urge all parties to "listen patiently before formulating responses" and "avoid using inflammatory words, derogatory names, or an excited and angry voice," the biblical text has an uncanny way of igniting people's passions, particularly when they feel that basic theological tenets are at stake. Furthermore, the rules could lead to the conclusion that the maintenance of denominational decorum, however improbable, is more important than action... in any direction. (And for what it's worth, the historical Jesus seems to have been much more interested in action than decorum!) Nevertheless, we can all benefit from timely reminders to "strive to understand the experience out of which others have arrived at their views" and "remember that people are defined, ultimately, by their relationship with God--not by the flaws we discover, or think we discover, in their views and actions."

Love for the Variants

I've just finished reading Eldon Jay Epp's article on textual variants in the most recent edition of the Harvard Theological Review (if you or your supporting institution are subscribers, you may access a full text version of the article here; the abstract is available to everyone). Not surprisingly, I found it to be extremely stimulating (and not just because he taught at Case Western, where my best friend went to school!). Epp concludes with a brief definition of textual criticism which, in my opinion, succinctly captures the new direction in which the discipline is headed:

"New Testament textual criticism, employing aspects of both science and art, studies the transmission of the New Testament text and the manuscripts that facilitate its transmission, with the unitary goal of establishing the earliest attainable text (which serves as a baseline) and, at the same time, of assessing the textual variants that emerge from the baseline text so as to hear the narratives of early Christian thought and life that inhere in the array of meaningful variants."

The body of the article is concerned with the paradigm shift expressed in the above definition: the abandonment of the long-standing search for an "original text" in favor of an "earliest attainable text," and a more detailed exploration of the relationship between individual variants and the communities which produced them. In particular, Epp is determined to avoid the common text-critical pitfall in which one reading is determined to be "original" or "correct" while the others are simply discarded. He even offers a sample of a prototypical, "variant-friendly" critical text:



I must admit that despite my appreciation of the various sigla of the Novum Testamentum Graece--particularly the unobtrusive way in which they offer a vast amount of information to readers without forcing it upon them--I enjoyed the ability to view variants alongside the "baseline" text. Of course, as Epp points out, this is only a brief sample; a full-scale edition is but a pinpoint on the biblical studies horizon. He also notes that even if such an edition were produced, it would be best used in conjunction with existing critical editions, rather than apart from them. Even so... I think I'd buy one. ;-)