"I can count on one hand the number of historical Jesus scholars who hold orthodox beliefs."

Dr. Scot McKnight, an Evangelical Scripture scholar and professor of religion at North Park University in Chicago, has penned a rather fascinating essay, "The Jesus We'll Never Know," for Christianity Today, which argues that the search for the historical Jesus is dead and over:

Furthermore, these scholars by and large believe in the Jesus they reconstruct. During what's called the "first quest" for the historical Jesus, in the early 20th century, Albert Schweitzer understood Jesus as an apocalyptic Jesus. In the latest quest, Sanders's Jesus is an eschatological prophet; Crossan's Jesus is a Mediterranean peasant cynic full of wit and critical of the Establishment; Borg's Jesus is a mystical genius; Wright's Jesus is an end-of-the-exile messianic prophet who believed he was God returning to Zion. We could go on, but we have made our point: Historical Jesus scholars reconstruct what Jesus was really like and orient their faith around that reconstruction.

This leads to a third point, one that needs renewed emphasis today: Historical Jesus scholars reconstruct Jesus in conscious contrast with the categories of the evangelists and the beliefs of the church. Wright is the most orthodox of the well-known historical Jesus scholars; I can count on one hand the number of historical Jesus scholars who hold orthodox beliefs. The inspiration for historical Jesus scholarship is that the Gospels overdid it, and that the church more or less absorbed the Galilean prophet into Greek philosophical categories. The quest for the historical Jesus is an attempt to get behind the theology and the established faith to the Jesus who was—I must say it this way—much more like the Jesus we would like him to be.

One has to wonder if the driving force behind much historical Jesus scholarship is more an a priori disbelief in orthodoxy than a historian's genuine (and disinterested) interest in what really happened. The theological conclusions of those who pursue the historical Jesus simply correlate too strongly with their own theological predilections to suggest otherwise.

The question that many of us in the discipline must ask is this: Can theology or Christology or, more importantly, faith itself be connected to the vicissitudes of historical research and results?

<snip>

I now make a confession. For the better part of my academic career, I have participated in studies of the Gospels and the historical Jesus. I am an insider to the conversation, and have been part of the steering committee for the SBL'S Historical Jesus Section. In fact, I was once asked to be the chair. Had that invitation come five years earlier, I would have eagerly accepted the responsibility. But that invitation came at the end of a long project of mine that culminated in my book Jesus and His Death: Historiography, the Historical Jesus, and Atonement Theory. I declined the position because I could no longer commit myself to historical Jesus studies. The last thing I wrote in that book was the first chapter, which was an essay about method and what historical Jesus studies can accomplish.

Attentive readers will observe that the first chapter relativizes the theological significance of historical Jesus efforts. I had tried my best to see where the methods would lead if I sought to examine if and how the historical Jesus understood his own death. Some of my results disappointed, because I wanted to be able to prove some texts as authentic that I found stubbornly resistant to the methods available to us. Historiography, I concluded, can only do so much. One day, while editing the final draft, I came across these words from Romans 4:25: "He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification."

This is what I said to myself: As a historian I think I can prove that Jesus died and that he thought his death was atoning. I think I can establish that the tomb was empty and that resurrection is the best explanation for the empty tomb. But one thing the historical method cannot prove is that Jesus died for our sins and was raised for our justification. At some point, historical methods run out of steam and energy. Historical Jesus studies cannot get us to the point where the Holy Spirit and the church can take us. I know that once I was blind and that I can now see. I know that historical methods did not give me sight. They can't. Faith cannot be completely based on what the historian can prove. The quest for the real Jesus, through long and painful paths, has proven that much.

Read the entire piece. CT has also posted three equally engaging responses to McKnight's essay: N. T. Wright: "We Do Need History", Craig Keener: "Jesus Studies Matter", and Darrell Bock: "We Need Context".

Comments

[tioedong]

These scholars also portray a culture that could never be...the "original" gospels resonate with village life in today's third world, but their fantasies mirror only a Chomsky fantasy of how folks think and act. (I base this on years working in poor areas on three continents).

Two: Anne Rice, who researched her books on Jesus commented that she was astonished to find most of these scholars seemed to hate Jesus...because how could you spend your life researching someone you loathed?

[J.S.]

Wasn't it Schweitzer who demolished the first quest by noting "historical Jesus" scholars' resconstructions were made after their own image? So what has changed? Nothing it seems.