Jesus on trial - expert opinion

WHERE IS THE HISTORY OF JESUS?

This article was the last of a series on ‘Jesus, the Man’ in The Australian newspaper. It appeared on Christmas Eve, 1968.

Where is the history of Jesus?

The four Gospels were not designed to answer all the questions that a modern historian or biographer likes to ask. As their name implies, they are a written statement of the gospel itself, that is, of the news that the apostles had to announce.

If his had just been a matter of a man’s being raised from the dead, it would not have caused so much ado. Classical man expected to be frequently confronted with portents — signs of the inexorable encroachment of fate.

Anything from dreams to striking coincidences or the monstrosities of nature might be taken as portentous. According to local practice and how seriously one took them, the event would be reported, confirmed by evidence, expiated — and people would anxiously wait for the next sign.

No one really wanted to be certain what the future held: it was enough to know that it was unpromising and getting worse.

By their own account the apostles were frightened and confused over the resurrection. Then an extraordinary change took place. It was made clear to them that the raising of Jesus from the dead proved in spite of everything that he was the Messiah predicted in Scripture. Jesus was ‘Christ’ after all.

Thus the news became ‘good’ news, or the gospel. It was necessary now to look back to the birth, career and death of Jesus to show how anyone with a perceptive ear and a knowledge of Scripture could have seen it coming, and how some did.

It was also necessary to explain to non-Jews (for the gospel soon dropped the iron curtain of the law that had surrounded the synagogues) what the Messianic kingdom meant. The coming judgment and rule of God over all people was announced. They must recognise it, and turn to welcome it (‘repent’ and ‘believe').

The gospel was therefore not only an attempt to detail the history of one event, but to show that in that event the end of all mankind’s history might be defined. The choice and arrangement of material in the written Gospels has been governed by such interests. The question naturally arises, has history been sacrificed to ideology?

Before Classical times there was no abstract thought. Instead of using general ideas (for example: ‘man’, ‘evil’), an issue was represented in particular terms (‘Adam’, ‘the serpent’). This has been called ‘mythopoeic’ thought, which means that the thinking is done not in abstract terms but by means of a particular story, or ‘myth’.

In such a case the question of the historicity of the story is as irrelevant as it would be to ask whether an abstract proposition was ‘historically’ true. Both modes of thought are used to assert in principle what happens in actual cases. In an obvious sense mythopoeic thought is more historically realistic than abstract thought.

Myth

A subtle modern school of theology (the ‘demythologising’ school of Rudolf Bultmann) holds that the resurrection of Christ is a myth in this sense. That is, the question of what actually happened is not at stake. What matters is its general meaning for the rest of mankind.

But the New Testament writers certainly did not think mythopoeically.

In their day the myth survived only as an illustration in philosophical discourse and in drama, whether on the stage or in the mystery cult, which had been the parent of the theatre.

Both uses certainly have their counterpart in the New Testament. Paul uses the stories of the Old Testament as figures of what happens with those who believe in Christ. But the old is here taken not merely as the symbol of the new; it is its prototype — hence this sort of thinking is called ‘typological’.

Both events are equally real historically: indeed it is precisely the historical reality of the ‘type’ that is held to make it a sure guide to the meaning of one’s own experiences. The connection between them is simply that they are both acts of the same God.

The New Testament counterpart of the mystery drama is Paul’s identification of the experience of believers with the death and resurrection of Christ. At first sight this might seem to support Bultmann’s hypothesis. But Paul specifically insists that Christ's experience is only an effective model for ours because it actually happened. Otherwise the hope of ‘dying to sin’ and rising to new life is only a pathetic illusion.
In the mystery cults, on the other hand, the value of the ‘myth’ of the dying and rising god lay essentially in the worshippers response as he witnessed its re-enactment. His sensual awakening to the colour and movement of the drama was itself his assurance of resurrection.

The New Testament does not cultivate such a hope through the experience of worship. The churches met to hear the teaching of Jesus and the apostles, and for the practical help and encouragement of the believers. Information, doctrine and behaviour were their main concern. Ecclesiastical practice has often tended to veer in the direction of the mystery cults. The emphasis upon religious buildings and atmosphere, worship and liturgy — and especially the mystique that surrounds the Eucharist and the seasonal anniversaries — all threaten to turn Christ into a myth whose value lies only in the ever-recurring responses of the cult.

Yet in its doctrinal tradition, crystallised in the creeds, the church has officially held to the position of the apostles. Belief in Christ means crediting the historical statements and claims that they made about Jesus.

In a striking phrase the apostle drew the distinction between gospel and mystery. ‘For we did not follow skilfully constructed myths in letting you know of the power our Lord Jesus Christ showed in his coming: the sight we watched was that of his actual greatness’.² His word for ‘watched’ is the technical term for the worshippers watching the mystery drama.

To treat the story of Christ as a myth, in this sense, is to make an entirely unhistorical use of the documents, since the apostles intended the opposite.

If myth is a device for expressing the truth of a general idea, and has nothing to do with history except in the formal sense of being a story, we use the term ‘legend’ where the writer claims to describe what actually happened, but we suspect he has got it wrong or garbled.

Any much-discussed event tends to give rise to legend, so that legends usually indicate that something very impressive did in fact happen. It is the historian’s job to spot a legend for what it is, and to find out what gave rise to it.

Legend

A legend-dominated tradition is obvious where it has crystallised into ballad or epic through centuries of retelling. Any other evidence has long since vanished, and the historian has to work on the stereotyped version by internal criticism. Homer is a case in point.

The gospel story was a fertile subject for legend-making in antiquity, and still is. But in this case the historian has plenty of leverage for criticism.

Instead of developing a common version at a later date, the churches took pains to establish the authority of a selection of the most ancient documents. In spite of the force of the drive for orthodoxy, the source material was not standardised. The historical integrity of the documents was itself in fact the basis of orthodoxy.

The canonical texts were composed at intervals over the two generations following upon the lifetime of Jesus. It is hardly surprising that there are no contemporary records. No one at the time would have been aware of the demand for evidence that would arise.

Most if not all of the New Testament documents will have been drawn up within the lifetime of eyewitnesses. The historian may well find the lapse of one generation an advantage. It allows for the sifting and checking of evidence, and the formation of wider perspectives.

The many legends about Jesus from later ages tell their own story. The canonical Gospels chose their material for its messianic significance. That did not satisfy human and historical curiosity, for many things were passed over, such as Jesus’ childhood. Hence the mass of apocryphal gospels. Any reader can see at once how they have moved away from any controlling contact with what actually happened.

Another source of invention was that of changing theological fashion. The ‘secret sayings’ of Jesus recently found at Nag Hammadi were conflated from canonical and other material to make Jesus advocate the renunciation of the flesh. Since Paul condemns the identical doctrines it is inconceivable that they were really part of Jesus’ teaching.

By contrast with the growing accretion of legend in later versions the historical integrity of the canonical texts stands out clearly.

But the question remains. Does not the fact that the apostles were committed to the truth of their viewpoint disqualify them as historical witnesses?

On the contrary, since they tried to stake their doctrines on the truth of the events they reported, they have a vested interest in the accuracy of their information. Whether or not one accepts their point of view, or thinks they got their facts right, it can hardly be denied that their commitment is to historical truth.

The ferocious controversies which surrounded Jesus and the dissension amongst his followers kept the road to the facts open. Nothing weakens our grip on the past like the consensus of a static tradition.

Dogma
In the fourth century it was the ecclesiastical historian Eusebius who first broke the aesthetic canons of Classical historiography to introduce extensive documentation. For dogmatic reasons the actual words of men in the past now mattered supremely. Theological controversy after the Reformation also inspired greater concern for the facts.

In the Classical tradition history was controlled by criteria of style and of moral purpose. The aim of a good historian was to present his facts impressively so that people could learn from the example of the past.

No one in antiquity would have accepted the Gospels as history in this sense for the very reason that they were preoccupied with proof and documentation. They ignored the rules of historical style. For a comparable concern with getting the details right one would have to turn in antiquity to the law courts or other places where the ultimate requirement was proof.

There has never been a tradition so punctilious over verbal accuracy as that of the ancient Jews. Of the New Testament writers Paul especially was trained in this hard school. He had not known Jesus, and had been converted as an arch-enemy of the gospel.

His respect for the facts is impressive. It is often suggested that the teaching of Jesus was moulded to the interests of powerful minds like his.

But Paul himself scrupulously distinguishes his own ideas from the Lord’s words. Nor has anyone else ventured to remake Jesus in Paul’s image. Although his epistles were circulating before the Gospels were drawn up in their present form, the distinctive ideas of Paul are not imprinted upon the Gospels at all.

The Gospel writers deserve credit above all for restraint.

None of them attempts to describe how Jesus rose from the tomb. Through the question must have cried out to their imagination, they kept to the evidence they were sure of. The first of the non-canonical gospels promptly filled the gap, and before long the credulous could even read detailed accounts of what had gone on in Hell between the death and resurrection of Jesus.

If one hesitates before the singular claims the apostles made for Jesus, the problem should not be charged against them. They had themselves arrived at their conclusion only after much doubt and argument. They now sought by a scrupulous presentation of the evidence to show that Jesus was the one sent by God to redeem the world. The gospel was to stand or fall on history.

¹ Surprised by Joy
² 2 Peter 1:16.