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Salvete omnes,
Some of the things Graecus says and the way he handles texts and materials has given occasion to make me wonder where he is coming from. I sometimes get the impression I’m discussing Christian origins with someone studying in the field 30 years ago. So, I thought if I shared my view of the changes in the field from the late 70s and early 80s it might provide a map for him to locate where I’m coming from and allow him to share where he is coming from in terms of it.
Generally as I see it now, in the late 70s and early 80s even though things were beginning to dramatically change, these changes had not been fully absorbed nor felt. Although Bauer’s work had been out for a while and was considered a major work, it had not yet impacted the field as to how the discipline was taught unless one was studying at Harvard under Koester or out at Claremont.
I think the best way to indicate the striking changes that have occurred is back then most serious scholars would have not questioned the existence of the historical Jesus. The second quest was in full swing. Now there are scholars who are beginning to revisit the “Dutch hypothesis†that there may not have been a historical Jesus and they are not dismissed as an extreme lunatic fringe. This seems to have been the latest development arising out of the very recent positive re-evaluation of Couchoud’s (1939?) analysis of the pre-Pauline (and thus, very, very early) text Phil. 2:6-11 that the divine enthronement of Christ in that hymn is what confers the name of Jesus (a lesser Yahweh) upon the vindicated Christ. The text has been not looked at enough and the assumption was there was already someone named Jesus to which the term Christ was added. Couchoud analysis of this very early text indicates
the vindicated Christ receives the name of Jesus after this divine enthronement. Couchoud’s conclusion was if even the name of Jesus can’t be treated as a historical name belonging to someone who already had that name, then the last bit of evidence that there was a historical Jesus is in question. At the time, his analysis was dismissed but now it is being re-visited. I am not ready to buy into that position yet. When I started out, I thought the second quest for the historical Jesus was methodologically a legitimate enterprise and that Jesus as a first century apocalyptic prophet following up the ministry of John the Baptist was solid. Now, I guess I’m where Bultmann was before he wrote Jesus and the Word which kicked the second quest off to a start. That is, I don’t doubt there was a historical Jesus but it is impossible to have any knowledge of him; there is no way to get behind the already theological and mythical “Christs†of early
Christian confessions. Bultmann was profoundly skeptical of the possibility of any quest for the historical Jesus (before he wrote Jesus and the Word) and that is where I am now. I think the scholars here and in Europe who are re-visiting the idea that there never was a historical Jesus conclude too much from our inability to get at a historical figure. But the very fact that they are considering this possibility and are not dismissed out of hand is for me a sign of the biggest changes in the field since I began in it.
When I started, even though the traditional picture that the New Testament writings were eye-witness reports written by Jesus’ immediate followers, and that, orthodoxy preceded heresy was not literally believed in anymore by the professors I studied with, in retrospect, it still had its subliminal grip in their minds, mine, and how the discipline was shaped. For example, it was assumed generally valid that the New Testament writings were older and that New Testament apocrypha, gnostic writings and patristic writings were less old. It was noted that some patristic texts were as old as some New Testament writings and some were older than other New Testament writings but that was of marginal significance. It was nothing major. Plus, it was also noted that some Gnostic texts might have a very early date that makes them as old as some New Testament texts and older than some other New Testament texts.
But again this was seen as having minor consequence. Further, New Testament apocrypha were a not considered as vitally important for Christian origins as the New Testament texts. As a consequence, you had New Testament criticism as one discipline, patristics as another, Gnostic studies as another, and study of the New Testament apocrypha as another. Now I see an increasing trend to put all these on an equal footing. Historical critical study is now of early Christian texts, period. That is an emerging disciplinary change.
To discuss in some detail how and why these changes developed, at least in my experience, I shall focus on the synoptic problem as an example. By way of background, New Testament criticism is typically divided into a critical historical study of the epistles (the oldest NT writings are some of the epistles) and the critical historical study of the gospels which are later writings. Now for those who may not know what the synoptic problem is, it has long been known that Matthew, Mark, and Luke are very similar to each other in contrast to John. Second, Mark, Matthew, and Luke share some of the same material. The standard model is that Mark was written first. Matthew and Luke borrow large chunks of Mark and incorporate this Markan material into their gospels. There is further material that Matthew and Luke (and the gnostic gospel of Thomas) share that scholars long ago named Q (after the German word for
“sourceâ€). Then there is material unique to Matthew and material unique to Luke. Now even though the traditional picture mentioned and described above was no longer literally believed, I said it still had its grip on the field in my experience. As I see it now, part of the reason form criticism dominated the field at the time was due to the hold the traditional picture still had upon those who no longer believed it. Form criticism attempts to discern and analyze the oral traditions that may have existed and may have been used in compiling a written text. So, form critical study of the synoptics was to get at the oral traditions Mark, Matthew, and Luke used to write their gospels. The assumption behind the reigning paradigm of form criticism as the key, as I now see it, was the traditional picture. It was assumed that the authors of the gospels were mere editors putting into written form oral traditions faithfully preserving memories of Jesus, his
words, deeds, and teaching. This view was also part of the reason there was a tendency to push for an early date, for example, of Mark. We all know the game of telephone. If the hypothesized oral traditions of Jesus were to be reliable and a faithful preservation of what he said and did, then the oral transmission had to be short. So, even though the possible range of dates at that time for Mark was between 70 CE (after the war) clear to what was seen as a very late date of post-135 CE (after the Bar Kokhba revolt) [both dates were motivated by considerations of the little synoptic apocalypse of Mark 13 reflecting one or the other destruction of Jerusalem], the latter part of that range was seen as doubtful partly because of the belief that Mark faithfully represented oral traditions that also faithfully preserved memories of what Jesus said and did.
[Note: I’m aware of there being qualifications to this view at the time and still are but I’m simplifying in order to make the points clear.]
There was also a widespread tacit assumption that was a consequence of the subliminal hold of the disavowed traditional picture retained in that we all felt that generally Mark, Matthew, and Luke were redactors (i.e.,editors) with a light touch. This implied that the Markan material that Matthew and Luke borrow from Mark faithfully represented earlier oral traditions about Jesus, that the Q source shared by Matthew and Luke faithfully preserved oral traditions of Jesus (in fact, when I started out, it was also assumed that Q was a shared body of oral tradition, it was only later that the case was made that it had to be an earlier written source), and that the material unique to Matthew was Matthew’s handling of earlier oral materials (what used to be called the special M source) and the same for the uniquely Lukan material (what used to be called the special L source). That was sort of the
mainstream view at the time. But even when I was starting out that was beginning to change and little did we anticipate how dramatically. As I remember, it began with the studies of Marxsen, Bornkamm, Conzelmann, Guttgemanns, Fowler, Neirynck beginning to make their impact felt even in how us students were trained with redaction criticism receiving more emphasis, looking more closely at the redaction activities of Matthew and Luke that began to cast doubt on their perceived role as mere editors lightly handling earlier hypothesized oral materials by how they handled Markan material and Q source material. They were more than light-handed redactors but more like creative authors exercising their own theological imaginations. One consequence was we were beginning to doubt the existence of special M and special L sources. The alleged M and L materials were out of the creative theological imaginations of Matthew and Luke. But then the question arose why
would Mark be an exception then? What is the basis for the assumption that the Markan material itself is not a product of heavy redaction or even maybe that it is not redacted material at all. Maybe the Markan material involves creatively writing a fictional life of Jesus (actually, just the events leading up to the passion) to fit Pauline theology and to flesh it out. What was the basis for the assumption that in Mark there was no major re-working of earlier historical oral materials faithfully preserving memories of what Jesus said? Or more radically, what is the basis of the assumption Mark is even dealing with earlier oral materials at all? And sure enough, the line of study, research, and reflection in terms of these questions about Mark led eventually to Mack’s 1988 work on Mark , A Myth of Innocence although earlier papers and articles were already pointing the direction he was headed.
In addition, recent work, such as that of Crossan and others, indicates that although the gospel writers are inventing stories about Jesus so the gospels are mostly if not completely literary fictions serving a theological purpose, the gospel authors are using prior materials. But they are not “historical Jesus materialsâ€. They are, in essence, fleshing out the skeleton of the Pauline Christ, with a “life†in accordance with the scriptures. In effect, they are inventing stories that probably have no historical Jesus content to them about fictional events and episodes in the “life of Jesus†that is theologically in accordance with Old Testament. The prior materials, therefore, are the mythic Christ of the Pauline tradition and the Old Testament out of which a fictional “life of Jesus in accordance with the scriptures†is invented. Not even touching upon John (also because I said I’d
focus on the synoptic), since the synoptics don’t even agree on the order and sequence of these “episodes†and “eventsâ€, this also reinforces the suspicion they are totally fiction serving theological purposes.
Another consequence of these studies was how it impacted the second quest for the historical Jesus. If the material unique to Matthew, the material unique to Luke, and now, even the Markan material can’t be treated as reliably reflecting earlier “Jesus traditionsâ€, then it seemed that only left Q as a source for a quest for the historical Jesus. Q studies became all the rage. After it was reasonably established that Q itself had to be a written document and not a body of oral lore, there were attempts to both reconstruct it and apply textual critical methods to it. One result was that the apocalyptic material appeared to be a later Christian redaction of Q source which implied that the second quest picture of the historical Jesus as a first century apocalyptic prophet was being questioned. This second quest picture was also being questioned along independent lines or study indicating that there
was no “messianic fervor or expectation†current within Judaism at the time. Thus, in effect, there was no audience for an apocalyptic Jesus. I still find the second line of study drawing into question the apocalypticism of the time of Jesus more convincing that the so-called redaction criticism of a lost but reconstructed Q source which still strikes me as very “iffyâ€. But I do find one aspect of the textual criticism of Q to be more convincing but it took a while for me to come around to it partly because the “Jesus was a Cynic sage†theme that was popular in the late 80s and 90s put me off. But I am convinced that the Q material reflects or is itself Cynic philosophy material. And that is how I came around eventually to the original Bultmann position before he wrote Jesus and the Word, that is, all we have are materials reflecting early Christian belief and nothing that points back reliably to a historical Jesus. Again, I don’t doubt
there was a historical Jesus but we are incapable of getting behind the multiple versions of kerygmatic christs in early Christian confessions. Now I do think that the so-called “resurrection appearances†(noting that I agree with the research that the empty tomb traditions are late fictions and the earliest accounts of “risen Christ†are the visionary experiences such as Paul’s on the road to Damascus and which show up in Gnostic materials, and I really like Pagel’s discussion of it in her first chapter of the Gnostic Gospels) are a bit of evidence that there had to be a historical someone but I also agree that these visionary appearances are already heavily “theologized†in terms of early Christian mythic christs images. That such visionary experiences are the foundational and inaugural events of Christianity I don’t doubt but I don’t think they are useful for constructing a “historical Jesus.â€
Now, the growing skepticism I have about the hope of discerning a historical content to early Christian belief made me back up. I now take my point of departure with the fact that we only have texts that really mainly are fourth century and later. Actually sitting down and marking up a New Testament to reflect the changes made to the text and what its books would have looked like in an earlier form is startling. We see a single change and since it appears small, we think it of no consequence. So, we tend to think that all the changes cumulatively are minor. But that impression is wrong. That is why I’m extremely skeptical that we can confidently say that the gospels nearly reached their “canonical form†(as you put it Graecus) by the second century. But there are other reasons as well. First, ante-nicene patristic citations of what is purported to be New Testament writings, everything else
being equal, are insufficient to vouch for the writing as a whole. A cited verse or two does not validate a whole book. It does not show that the whole work as we have it existed then. This is especially the case when we consider that fact that even within the existing New Testament manuscripts we can have a verse shared by different versions of the same New Testament book. Second, as Helmut Koester has pretty decisively shown, there are no clear citations of canonical gospels in the patristic sources of the second century (Koester, 1990, Ancient Christian Gospels, pp. 14-19). Third, the Papias material is doubtful – we don’t have a physical text – and shows the hand of a fourth century and possibly post-Eusebius redactor. Fourth, the oldest manuscripts of Irenaeus are also fourth century and show signs of fourth century redaction specifically when he is allegedly talking about there being only four the four canonical gospels. As Koester
indicates, this effectively eliminates what used to be regarded as the upper limit to how late the New Testament gospels can be. Meanwhile, Gnostic writings have been allowed possible earlier dates than they were once given as well as some of the New Testament apocrypha.
Now, as I have repeatedly said, I believe there was a historical Jesus even though we can know nothing about him. But in light of all the remarks above and in light of the Bauer research mentioned at the beginning that in most places, that contrary to the traditional picture that orthodoxy preceded heresy which is the invention of the imperial church, most of the earliest local Christian communities around the Mediterraean were gnostic and the proto-orthodox- catholic church came later (and won out because of its superior organization which made it attractive to a administratively failing empire), it is understandable that some scholars are re-visiting the Dutch hypothesis proposed by the older pietist Bauer that there may have never been a historical Jesus. He is a fiction invented by Mark to flesh out an earlier mythic Christian Christ. If the earliest local Christian congregations around the
Mediterraean were indeed gnostic first, and only later, proto-orthodox as Bauer’s studies indicate and given the fact that the gnostics are notorious for their mythologizing and their mythological Christ motifs with apparently very little interest in or knowledge of a historical Jesus, it seems reasonable to conclude that our New Testament authors are really doing the same thing the gnostics are doing when they mythologize. If so, this has suggested to some scholars that the original Christian motif is a mythical and visionary Christ figure and the so-called Jesus of the gospels is a later invention and probably did not exist. One French scholar has even hypothesized and argued that the original Christ might have been the mythic Gnostic Christ, Paul develops his own version from that, and the New Testament gospel writers fictionally developed their fictional Jesus who “lived according to the scriptures†to flesh out the Pauline Christ in terms of
passion narrative. Back when I started, this view would have been dismissed out of hand. Again, I think there was a historical Jesus and this view is extreme. But things have changed that it is now even considered without automatic rejection. And that sort of outlines my autobiography in terms of where I started and where I have arrived in terms of my researches into Christian origins.
I hope you enjoyed this, Modianus. And if Graecus does read this, I hope it helps clarify where I’m coming from and why.
Valete,
A. Sempronius Regulus |