Looking for the Historical Jesus
April 29th, 2008 by JohnO
Click here to listen to Looking for the Historical Jesus: In Between Evangelical and Liberal Scholarship presented by Sean Finnegan, Apr 29th 2008, Atlanta Georgia. Commentary by John Obelenus
Sean tells us a story of a girl he met in Borders. He was unable to give her a good introductory book to the Christian faith. He knew the kinds of books on the shelves: the evangelical ‘Jesus-is-God’ type, and the liberal ‘there are no miracles-Jesus is a failed prophet’ type. We need to find a middle road between these two, as they both offer good points and bad points.
He starts with the good news about evangelical scholarship:
- The existence of God (Peter Kreeft, Alvin Plantinga)
- The resurrection of Jesus proves the Christian God exists (William Lane Craig)
- Textual criticism proves the New Testament to be reliable (AT Robertson)
- Historical studies show that the gospels are reliable accounts of fact, specifically Luke as a writer (FF Bruce).
- The gospel accounts do not read like fables, but rather eye witness accounts by the traditional authors even though they disagree at points (Richard Bauckham, Craig Blomberg)
Next he moves on to the bad news about evangelical scholarship, basically the built in limitations. They are committed to tow the party line by validating their truth instead of discovering truth. Specifically this comes in two forms; (1) the deity of Jesus, and (2) the definition of the Kingdom of God. And if the orthodox view is wrong, they can never be correct because of their presuppositions.
On we move to the good news of liberal scholarship:
- There is no limitation. We can use the best of all our research tools, history, archeology, sociology, languages to find out what was really going on in the first century.
- They support our understanding of the coming Kingdom wholeheartedly. (John Dominic Crossan, Bart Ehrman)
- They show us that Jesus is an apocalypticist (through baptism by John the ultimate apocalypticist), placing him in historical context. (Dale Allison, Bart Erhman)
- Jesus belongs firmly within the Judaism of the first century (EP Sanders, John Hick)
Finally the bad news of liberal scholarship:
- Jesus is a failed prophet because of his crucifixion, and the lack of the Kingdom coming.
- Miracles don’t happen therefore Jesus was not raised from the dead.
Ultimately Sean challenges us to combine the best of both of these worlds, putting together Jesus Kingdom dream of the future the liberals can tell us without any limits, with the miracles and existence of God. This climaxes with the resurrection where the future age breaks into this current evil age to show us all a glimpse of what we hope for, proving miracles and God’s existence.
In conclusion he writes: “Any movement that hopes to survive must have its identity clear. Our very existence as an independent stream of theological thought depends on this… At a foundational level, we are restorationists who are on a quest to understand and practice primitive Christianity… We are on an expedition whose destination is not a place but an understanding… Then we need to sort out how to live for God in our post-enlightenment, post-modern, post-Christian, post-everything culture. In this endeavor, we have much to learn; there are many unanswered questions. We may not have all the answers, but we do have some answers. The gospel of the Kingdom and the creed of Jesus have been recovered (among other things). Shall we now hide them under a basket? May it never be!”
This is an interesting article. I like the breakdown of the two main worldviews. It is an interesting concept.
We definitely need the middle of the road - without compromising the Historical Jesus which we can only get from the NT Text. Even if the NT Text is horribly wrong - that is the most reliable historical record.
Thanks so much for taking the time to listen to the lecture, it is a very important topic for us.
Most liberals would even agree that the NT text is not horribly wrong. Out of all the textual critics I’ve heard of, only two were believing (Metzger, and BeDuhn), that is they are liberal. Perhaps only Bart Ehrman would consider that the text is wrong (Misquoting Jesus/Orthodox Corruption of Scriptures), and horribly wouldn’t even be a good adjective to describe it.
“Most liberals would even agree that the NT text is not horribly wrong.”
I would agree to that, and I’m a liberal atheist.
Of course, you’d have to define what you mean by “wrong”, but I don’t imagine your definition would change my agreement.
are there conservative atheists?
Sure are.
Karl Rove, for one.
And I know a few personally, but not aware of too many famous conservative atheists.
“Wrong” would include; fantastic myth and fable, events that never occurred (we have to understand the different types of literature here), illegitimately transfered and copied, and mis-representing a jew named Jesus from Nazareth.
That is to say, “Right” is, to trust as reliable the gospel and epistle records handed down to us as a form of history of this figure Jesus of Nazareth, what his aims and claims were, and what he was attempting to communicate.
JohnO:
Cool. Then I stand by my comment. The NT is not horribly or totally wrong. In my humble opinion, anyway.
If anyone would be interested in reading my paper (which is much more extensive than the audio presentation) click here
“are there conservative atheists?”
Of course. John Derbyshire, who writes for the National Review, is one. You can read his thoughts on “Expelled” here: http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZGYwMzdjOWRmNGRhOWQ4MTQyZDMxNjNhYTU1YTE5Njk=
Also, many devotees of Ayn Rand would fall into that category. My boss is one of them.
Just wanted to take a break from my final paper here during finals week of my last semester and say that I love the work being done here. I appreciate the spirit of the dialogue, and the intellectual rigor put into these presentations. Great work Sean on making these available so quickly. I wish I could have been there. There seems to be a pretty big difference between say a Marcus Borg and a Bart Ehrman in the liberal side of things. No? In some ways, I think we can say that Ehrman approaches the text more conservatively than Borg, where much of it has something to do with “spirituality,” a spiritual resurrection and so forth. Any thoughts?
Dan Mages! The one, the only. Glad to have you stop by. What happened to your podcasts?
Indeed, Marcus Borg and JD Crossan certainly function in a more mythical manner as opposed to Ehrmann who, though he is an agnostic, is very literalistic when he approaches the text. Unfortunately, I did not have time to distinguish within the liberal camp the Jesus Seminar and co. Jesuses from the more main stream of liberal historical Jesus research. Have you read Dale Allison’s book on Jesus? He directly handles the non-eschatological Jesus of Crossan and Borg and to my satisfaction, once for all has debunked this fly-by-night theory.
Sean,
I have had some posting problems with the podcast, but now that I am finished, I should be able to straighten it all out. I have so many recordings it is ridiculous, since I gain new material almost weekly!
I have read significant segments of Allison’s work, but may eventually tackle it a bit more later on. I was listening to the Grace Cathedral Forum and James Tabor, author of “The Jesus Dynasty” was saying the Crossan has recently aligned himself with the apocalyptic prophet side of things. Have you read or heard anything about that?
All my best -
Nope, allthough I would be interested…it is not everyday that someone like Crossan would shift from a egalitarian social reformer to an apocalyptic prophet…especially considering his tome on the historical Jesus.