The of and the Historical Method Downloaded from

DANIEL P. FULLER

faith has always found difficulty in freeing itself from a

I basis in history. The great assertions of Christian faith — that God http://jaar.oxfordjournals.org/ V^^ loves men, that he is working to effect the triumph of righteousness, that he has prepared eternal felicity for those who love him — answer the deepest longings of the human heart. But because Christians aspire so strongly to believe these affirmations, they are nagged by the fear that they believe them simply because of wanting to do so. Thus, at least twice since the rise of the historical method, the Christian church has reacted rather sharply against any attempt to remove the basis of its faith from history, for a faith that is not based in history could be simply the projection of human aspiration. at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University on February 26, 2013

I David Strauss in his Das Lebcn Jesu (1835) proposed that the uniqueness of Jesus in the Gospels was a myth, the product of the faith of the early Christians. Because Jesus had taught that his disciples could achieve oneness with God, they had come to see him as the unique fulfillment of the Old Testament. But Strauss declared that faith need not look to Jesus alone for the knowledge of man's oneness with God, for this knowledge was available to all men. In the years following the publication of Das Lebrn Jesu, the literary priority of the Gospel of Mark became established through the investigations of Lachmann, Wilke, and Weisse. Since Mark was antecedent to the ap- parently more dogmatic and less coherent Matthew and Luke, it seemed that ) Mark provided a historical source of knowledge for Jesus as he really was. Thus, Mark became the basis for the numerous "liberal lives of Jesus" '. which appeared between 1860 and 1900. Their underlying theory was that while the Jesus of the later Gospels may well be distorted by the myth of ^ dogma and tradition (as Strauss had affirmed), yet Mark represents essen- tially the human Jesus, unencumbered by myth, who at the same time was *

DANIEL P. FULLER (B.D., M.Th., Fuller Theological Seminary; D.Theol., Uni- versity of Baiel) is Dean of the Faculty and Associate Professor of Hermeneutics at the Fuller Theological Seminary, Patadena. This article ii based upon a paper read before the Pacific Coast Section of the American Academy of Religion on April 2, 1965, at Pomona College. A somewhat popularized version of the author's doctoral dissertation, Easter Faith and History, was published in 1965 by Wm. B. Eerdntans. 18 THE AND THE HISTORICAL METHOD 19 unique and therefore the historical basis for faith.1 Hence, through the dis- covery of the literary priority of the Gospel of Mark, Christians were enabled, for the time being, to feel secure from the charge that their faith was a myth. More recently, the "new quest for the historical Jesus" has also been concerned to show that Christian faith is safe from this charge. Many who Downloaded from represent the Bultmannian tradition have been fearful that if, as Bultmann would have it, the importance of the historical Jesus for faith is no more than that of providing a Dass which makes faith the result of encounter, the content of this faith becomes most vulnerable to the charge of being simply a myth which has arisen from human aspiration rather than coming from http://jaar.oxfordjournals.org/ beyond human thought or imagination. Thus, Ernst Kasemann, who is gen- erally credited with inaugurating the "new quest," declares that the Jesus known by the historical method must be "constitutive for faith" in order to save faith in the exalted Lord from being a "myth."1 Furthermore, James M. Robinson asserts that unless a parallel could be shown between what could be known by modem historiography about both the Jesus of history on the one hand and the of faith on the other, the conclusion is inevitable

"that the Jesus of the kerygma could equally well be a myth, for [then] one at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University on February 26, 2013 has in fact declared the meaning of his historical person irrelevant."* And Hermann Diem, who belongs within the Barthian camp, has likewise found it impossible to relate faith to the history of Jesus simply by saying that through faith (and not through reasoning) we come to knowledge of the Jesus of history. In his inaugural address at Tubingen in 1957 Diem stated: "With a negative reply to the historical question of truth — that is, with historical proof of the discontinuity in the kerygmatic history [i. e., a dis- continuity between Jesus and our faith] — the theological question would already be negatively prejudiced, since it would then be at least doubtful whether the Christ who encounters us in the kerygmatic history is the earthly Jesus or only a myth."4 It thus becomes apparent that Christianity cannot get along without historically-derived knowledge about Jesus Christ. However, the earliest

1 Albert Schweitzer (The Quest of the Historical Jesus, London: A. & C. Black, 1931, p. 204) declare* that Heinrich J. Holtzmann's outline of the Jesus presented by the Gospel of Mark in the last ninety pages of hii Die synoptischen Evangclien (Leipzig, 1863) is the classic statement of the numerous lives of Jesus that followed thereafter. Holtzmann says, "Nowhere does the human Jesus emerge in such a recognizable fashion as in the Gospel of Mark" (p. 475). But at the same rime, so remarkable is this Jesns that "no one will want to find another example like it in the history of the developing God-consciousness of man" (p. 459). Thus, Holtzmann placed himself against Strauss, who regarded Jesus as one of many who helped men tee that they were one with God. ' Ernst Kasemann, "The Problem of the Historical Jesus," Essays on New Testament Themes, Studies in Biblical No. 41, London: SCM Press, 1964, pp. 33 f. • James M. Robinson, A New Quest of the Historical Jesus, Studies in Biblical Theology No. 25, London: SCM Press, 1959, p. 88. * Hermann Diem, "The Earthly Jesni and the Christ of Faith," Kerygma aid History, ed. C. E. Braaten and R. A. Harrisville, New York-Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1962, p. 205. 20 DANIEL P. FULLER expressions of Christian faith show that Jesus was vital to this faith, not primarily because of what he taught and did upon this earth, nor because of the matchless life he lived, but because he was the exalted Lord who rose from the dead.6 Paul summarized the situation when he declared, "If Christ be not risen from the dead, our faith is in vain" (I Cor. 15:17). Hence, if in order to avoid the charge of "myth," Christian faith must take recourse to Downloaded from knowledge about Jesus gained by historical reasoning, and if the Jesus who is important to faith is the Jesus who is risen, it follows that the question of how we can gain historical knowledge of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is pertinent. i

This question, however, is fraught with the difficulty that the resurrection http://jaar.oxfordjournals.org/ of Jesus Christ constitutes what the historian Marc Bloch termed "an overly- pronounced deviation" from what is analogous to our experience. According 4 to Bloch, if overly-pronounced deviations can occur, the gaining of historical knowledge becomes ipso facto impossible.' To illustrate this, Bloch tells of a certain Marbot, an officer in Napoleon's army, who was noted as a braggadocio 4 in describing his exploits. He wrote in his diary that on the night of May 7, 1809, he crossed the raging torrents of the Danube to free some prisoners of the Austrians. However, six weeks later, when Marbot came up for promo- at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University on February 26, 2013 < rion and, as was customary for an officer, should have then cited his valiant deeds, he said nothing about this remarkable exploit. Now the historian questions whether the entry in Marbot's diary is true or false by using that line of reasoning which postulates no "overly-pronounced deviation" to explain Marbot's actions. There is no such deviation in Marbot's motivation f if the entry be identified as fictional, for the purpose which led him to record this entry in his diary would also keep him silent about any such exploits before his superiors. His purpose to brag would lead him to make the entry in a diary that would be read at a later time by people who would find it + much more difficult to check the facts. This same purpose would deter him ( from compounding a fiction before his superiors, who could immediately know whether or not it was true. Braggarts do not report fiction as fact < before those who can belie the claim and bring sanctions to bear. But an J overly-pronounced deviation exists in Marbot's behavior if his entry be ) deemed fact, for then the purpose which led him to make the entry would be lacking at a time when it would have been to his interest to recount his exploit. In such a case, Marbot would be acting in contempt of his motives, v

1 Oscar Cullmann, The Earliest Ckristim Confess'ums, London: Lutterworth Press, 1959, pp. 58 f. * Marc Bloch, The Historian's Craft, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1954, p. 115. James M. Robinson, Kerygnu und historischer Jesus, Zurich: Zwingli Verlag, 1960, >* p. 14n., makes the same assertion: "The historian must always weigh the probabilities of contradictory reports. But this procedure of the historian becomes an impossibility whenever one believes that the intercormectedness of history is constantly disturbed by miracles. ^ The possibility of miracles must be excluded from posirivistic historiography not because J of certain dogmatic presuppositions but because of the demands of the historical method j itself." THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS AND THE HISTORICAL METHOD 21 and if people could act so capriciously in regard to their purposes and cir- cumstances, there would be no way to determine the validity of what they report, and it would be impossible to gain any knowledge of what has happened in the past. How, then, can we say that Jesus rose from the dead when our experience is that dead people remain dead? If we believe that such an "overly-pronounced Downloaded from deviation" actually happened, we are faced with the question, not only of how historical method could provide knowledge of it, but also of how we could then know other historical truths — that Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo or that Caesar crossed the Rubicon. http://jaar.oxfordjournals.org/

II Wolfhart Pannenberg of the has shown, I believe, how the historian may continue to use the principle of analogy as the in- dispensable tool for the historical method and yet not exclude the possibility that the resurrection of Jesus did occur. Pannenberg presents his theory of historical method in the following terms: "If analogies are applied with an acknowledgement of the limitation of their validity, then they will certainly at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University on February 26, 2013 not function as a criterion for the reality of what a tradition declares has happened, as Troeltsch ... has decreed. Just because a reported event breaks with the analogy of what is otherwise customary or usually reported is no reason, in itself, for disputing its occurrence. But it is an entirely different matter when there are analogies which could explain that the report of the unusual is conveyed in the literary form of a myth or a legend, or that the reporter could well be subject to hallucinations. Thus when there is evidence that the report stems from certain imaginative states of mind — and not simply when something unusual is reported — historical reason is led to a negative conclusion by the principle of analogy."7 Using this limited application of the principle of analogy, Pannenberg is able to come to a knowledge of the empty tomb and the appearances of the risen Jesus to his disciples without destroying the possibility of historical knowledge in general.8 Concerning the report of the empty tomb in the Gospels, Pannenberg concludes that it cannot be classed as fiction without asserting that the apostles' ability to found the church at Jerusalem took place in contempt of circumstances. There is general consensus that the apostles founded the church at Jerusalem through the preaching of the resur- rection of Jesus. But it would have been impossible for the apostles to have preached such a message "even for an hour," if the rulers at Jerusalem, who had every reason for silencing this message, could have pointed to the occupied

7 Wolfhart Pannenberg, "Heilsgeschehen und Geichichte," Kerygma und Dogma, V (1959), 266 f. •Wolfhart Pannenberg, Grund'uige ACT Christologie, Gutersloh: Gutersloher Ver- laghau* Gerd Mohn, 1964, pp. 85-103. The summary that follows is essentially from Pannenberg, but there is a little supplement from my own thinking. 22 DANIEL P. FULLER

tomb of Jesus or even have asserted that the tomb of Jesus was unknown because his body had been thrown into the customary burial ground for criminals. Neither could the apostles have preached a "spiritual" resurrection in conjunction with the occupied tomb of Jesus, for those who subscribed to the Jewish conception of the resurrection of the flesh would have insisted

that the tomb of someone for whom a genuine resurrection was claimed Downloaded from would have to be empty. But the fact is that the Christian church did originate in Jerusalem through the preaching of the resurrection, and it is also a fact that the opponents of Christianity among the Jewish people did oppose this message, but not by

pointing to the occupied tomb. Rather, according to Matthew 28:11-15 and http://jaar.oxfordjournals.org/ Justin Martyr's Dialogue with Trypho, ch. 108, the rejoinder actually used against the message of the resurrection was that the disciples of Jesus had come to the tomb by night and stolen the body. Thus, even the opponents testified that the tomb of Jesus was empty. However, this charge against the disciples has no serious adherents today.9 It cannot overcome the objection that had the disciples stolen the body of Jesus, they would have been in- sincere in preaching him as risen. On the basis of an analogy of how men

behave today, it would be impossible for the disciples to have preached with at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University on February 26, 2013 insincerity, for they preached the risen Jesus at the risk of their lives. Men do not risk their lives for what they know to be a fraud. By application of the principle of analogy to the report of the empty tomb, the fitting conclusion is that this report, like the earliest Christian proclamation at Jerusalem, could not be identified as fictional unless we are prepared to assert that the apostles' behavior was an overly-pronounced deviation from what accords with our experience of human behavior today. Furthermore, one cannot term fictional this report of the empty tomb without saying that the church could have originated in the city where the tomb of Jesus was either occupied or unknown. Hence one cannot assert the falsity of this report without maintaining either that the disciples risked their lives preaching something they knew to be a fraud or that the church arose right next to the occupied tomb of Jesus. David Hume's affirmation that a miracle could not be credited unless the assertion of the falsehood of the report of that miracle would itself involve a miracle may be recalled here.10 The assertion of the falsehood of the report of the empty tomb would involve a miracle. It would mean that effects are not analogous to their antecedent causes. And such an assertion would make all historical knowledge impossible. Therefore, we assert the validity of the report of the empty tomb, even though this involves us in believing that it was empty because of the miracle of the resurrection.

• In the eighteenth century Samuel Reimarus reintroduced this theory. See Fragmtnts from Ritmarus, C. Voysey, ed., Lexington, Kentucky: American Theological Library Association Committee on Reprinting, 1962, pp. 84-119. l t David Hume, An Enquiry Ctmurnmg Human Understanding, LaSalle, Illinois: Open Court, 1949, chap. 10. THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS AND THE HISTORICAL METHOD 23

How, then, are we to credit the report among the early Christians that the risen Jesus had indeed appeared to his disciples? To follow Pannenberg's procedure, we say that this report involves essentially either fact or fiction. Whichever it is, the report is an effect which follows from an analogous cause or complex of causes, since to deny this would be to deny the possibility of gaining any historical knowledge. The report would be adjudged fictional Downloaded from if it could be shown that it stemmed from the disciples' hallucinations or imagination. By historical reasoning, this report would be deemed fictional if it could be shown that the disciples were so disillusioned and despondent after Jesus' death that they could restore their emotional equilibrium and comfort themselves only by hallucinating or imagining that Jesus had risen http://jaar.oxfordjournals.org/ from the dead. However, if in the background of the disciples no cause can be found that would lead us to assign hallucinatory or imaginative behavior to them, it would still be necessary to postulate a cause for this report, for, again, to say that it had no cause is to discard completely the principle of analogy and thus to destroy all possibility of gaining historical knowledge. alleges that historical reasoning can do no more than account for the faith of the earliest disciples that Jesus had risen "from the personal intimacy which the disciples had enjoyed with Jesus during his at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University on February 26, 2013 earthly life, and so reduce the resurrection appearances to a series of subjec- tive visions."11 The preaching of Jesus was one of the factors11 which con- vinced the disciples that they had been confronted by the Word of God, and thus when they became convinced that he had risen from the dead, the one who had proclaimed the Word of God became the One whom they proclaimed. However, Pannenberg argues that while the disciples must have expe- rienced a great loss at the death of Jesus, it is not possible from the stand- point of historical reasoning to suppose that they could have had subjective visions of the risen Jesus appearing to them. Under the influence of their Jewish background, the disciples looked forward to a general resurrection from the dead. Therefore, as firmly as they might believe that the Word of God which they had encountered in connection with Jesus' preaching demanded that somehow he should survive death, they would nevertheless comfort themselves through their belief that at the general resurrection Jesus would rise along with other righteous men to "shine as the brightness of the firmament and as the stars for ever and ever" (Dan. 12:3). There was nothing in their background to encourage them to expect the resurrection of Jesus alone as the precursor of the general resurrection. Martha was not pre- disposed to interpret Jesus' promise that Lazarus would rise again to mean

n Rudolf Bultmann, "New Testament and Mythology," Kerygrru tnd Myth, London: S.P.C.K., 1957, p. 42. 11 Cf. Rudolf Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, London: SCM Press, 1951, I, 3: "The message of Jesus is a presupposition for the theology of the New Testament. . .. The fact that Jesus had appeared and the message which he had proclaimed were, of course, among its historical presuppositions." 24 DANIEL P. FULLER anything more than that "he shall rise again in the resurrection of the last day" (John 11:24). So too the disciples were not predisposed to overcome their sorrow or sense of injustice at Jesus' death by anything more than their conviction that he would rise with all the righteous at the coming of the Kingdom of God.1'

However, the truth is that the early church did come to see in the resur- Downloaded from rection of Jesus the preview of the general resurrection. As Pannenberg points out, from the standpoint of the Rrligionsgeschichte of the Jews in general and the disciples in particular, the resurrection of Jesus as the precursor of the resurrection to come was something entirely new.14 For this event we must postulate the existence of an analogous cause — or despair of gaining http://jaar.oxfordjournals.org/ historical knowledge of anything. Since the disciples' background provides no cause adequate to produce such an effect, the cause must therefore be that the risen Jesus appeared to his disciples. To be sure, that a man should rise from the dead is without analogy to our present experience. Yet, are there not more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philos- ophy? However, for the purpose of knowing the events of history, we must not discard the principle of analogy. To be exact, we must evaluate reports of the past on the assumption that they involve effects stemming from at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University on February 26, 2013 analogous causes. We can differentiate between the false and the true in such reports by investigating the circumstances in which these reports origi- nated and the motives of the reporters. Through this methodology we have shown that while Marbot is to be discredited, the report of the empty tomb and of the resurrection appearances is to be credited. We may conclude that Pannenberg has solved the problem of how we can know the resurrection of Jesus Christ by historical reasoning — and still remain historians.16

11 Of course, the Sadducees, while Jews, did not believe in a resurrection from the 4 dead (Mark 12:18 it par.; Acts 23:8; Josephus, Antiquities, 18.1.4, and Jewish Wars, { 2.8.14). But, according to Josephus, the great majority of Jews adhered to the teachings of the Pharisees (Antiquities, 13.10.5; cf. 18.1.4), and the Pharisees affirmed the resurrection ' from the dead (Josephus, Antiquities, 18.1.3, and New Testament passages cited above). According to Acts 26:7, so strong was this hope of the resurrection that Israel "served God night and day" in the hope of attaining it. There is every evidence that the disciples, along with Jesus, shared this Pharisaic conviction of a general resurrection. -, 14 Pannenberg, Grundzuge zur Christologu, op. cit., p. 93. Matt. 27:52 speaks of the resurrection of a number of Old Testament saints in connection with Jesus' death. But 1 there is nothing in Christian tradition pertaining to a general resurrection in connection with the time of Jesus' resurrection. B 11 The essential meaning of the resurrection of Jesus also becomes confirmed by this method of historical reasoning, for the disciples' witness to Jesus as risen concerns, not * simply the brute fact that he rose, but the meaning of his resurrection. I believe that it is ^ also possible to show, by Pannenberg's method of historical reasoning, that the essentials ', of this meaning could not have come from the disciples' imagination. See my Easter Faith J and History, Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1965, pp. 223-29. f