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ADM Jesus Then and Now 2 Lectures JESUS Then and Now Rev Dr John Dickson Senior Minister, St Andrew’s Roseville Lecturer, Historical Jesus, Sydney University Visiting Academic (2017-18), Faculty of Classics, Oxford University 1 HISTORY versus THEOLOGY 2 3 HISTORY OF RESEARCH ON THE HISTORICAL JESUS 4 Luke 1:1-4. Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught. 5 6 The consummate textual and redactional scholar of antiquity Origen of Alexandria and Caesarea (AD 185-253) 7 8 The Jesus of history and the ‘Christ’ of apostolic invention Text Hermann Samuel Reimarus (1694-1768) 9 The Gospels’ story as ‘myth’ David Friedrich Strauss (1808-1874) Jesus. the wise ethical teacher Joseph Ernest Renan (1823-1892) The priority of Mark and the Q-theory Heinrich Julius Holtzmann (1832-1910) The messianic ‘secret’ invented by the Gospel writers William Wrede (1859-1906) Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) The ‘Jesus’ proposed by scholars from Reimarus to Wrede is “a figure designed by rationalism, endowed with life by liberalism, and clothed by modern theology in an historical garb.” Kaysersberg, France/Germany 15 16 The life and teaching of Jesus are of secondary importance to Christian faith Rudolf Bultmann (1884-1976) How much of Christianity’s post-Easter faith is supported by the Gospels’ pre-Easter story? Ernst Käsemann (1906-1998) The criterion of dissimilarity states that material in the Gospels which is markedly different from both Judaism and the early church is likely to have come from Jesus himself. The logic is as follows: teachings of Jesus with strong parallels in Judaism might, so it was thought, be the result of the Gospel writers trying to make Jesus fit with the Jewish culture of their day; and teachings of Jesus with strong parallels in early Christian practice might be attempts to justify later ecclesiastical traditions by having Jesus say it first. So, in the midst of uncertainty, things that are doubly dissimilar (from Judaism and Christianity) can be said with confidence to come from Jesus. 19 Professor Geza Vermes Oxford University “How, then, can anyone imagine that a saying of Jesus, in order to be authentic, had to distance itself from every known expression of ‘Jewish morality and piety’? Such an angle of approach is quite close to the old-fashioned anti- Semitic attitude according to which the aim of Jesus was to condemn and reject the whole Jewish religion.” 21 Clarifying the Jewish and Hellenistic-Jewish origins of the Gospels’ portrait of Jesus Martin Hengel (1926-2009) Jesus fits very plausibly into Jewish renewal movements which longed for a new temple and locus of God’s presence in the world Ed Parish Sanders (born 1937) Nicholas Thomas Wright (born 1948) Jesus was an eschatological prophet who announced the end of exile and embodied the disclosure of God’s kingship in the world. The key symbols of Second Temple Judaism crystalize in the Gospels’ story of Jesus. Dale C. Allison (born 1955) Sounding a caution about the Third Quest: 1. Memory studies 2. An improper confidence that resonance equals accuracy 25 26 28 THE COMPANIONS OF JESUS 29 30 Professor Richard Bauckham, St Andrew’s University 32 Prof. Paula Fredriksen, Boston University “…the more facile the ethical or political relevance that a particular construct of Jesus presents the more suspect its worth as history. Only ancient evidence, not modern agendas, can reveal what might have mattered to ancient people.” 34 Women bankrolled his mission Loaf of bread 1/12 of a denarius ($9.16) Modest meal in an inn 1/4 denarius ($27.50) Women bankrolled his mission Luke 8:1-3. Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The Twelve were with him, 2 and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out; 3 Joanna the wife of Cuza, the manager of Herod’s household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means. 37 “… must have raised a few eyebrows in ‘polite society’ at the time” (Prof. James Dunn, Durham University. Jesus Remembered. Eerdmans, 2003, 537) 39 “To his contemporaries it was a staggering phenomenon that he did not shrink from dining with the irreligious; indeed, he did so at his own initiative.” Ben F. Meyer, The Aims of Jesus. SCM, 1979, 158. Mark 2:15-17 (Matthew 9:9-13; Luke 5:27-32). While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” ‘Sinners’ were simply the common folk, the amme-ha-aretz (people of the land), whose vulgar trades and lack of education left them ignorant of the noble ways of Judaism and therefore prone to moral lapses. (Joachim Jeremias, New Testament Theology (vol.1): The Proclamation of Jesus. SCM, 1971, 109-112. ) Joachim Jeremias (University of Leipzig) Professor Ed Sanders (Duke University) “Sinners were Jews who systematically or flagrantly transgressed, and who were, therefore, like Gentiles, except that they were even more culpable.” (E. P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus. Penguin Books, 1993, 227. “‘Sinners’ also functioned as a factional term a term of vituperative insult, a dismissive ‘boo-word’.” (James Dunn, Jesus Remembered. Eerdmans, 2003, 529-530.) The sinner stumbles and curses his life, the day of his birth, and his mother’s pains. He adds sin upon sin in his life; he falls—his fall is serious— and he will not get up. The destruction of the sinner is forever, and he will not be remembered when God looks after the righteous. (Psalms of Solomon 3.9-12) This is the share of the sinners forever. But they [the righteous] shall pursue sinners and overtake them, for those who act lawlessly shall not escape the Lord’s judgment. They shall be overtaken as by those experienced in war, for on their forehead is the mark of destruction. And the inheritance of sinners is destruction and darkness. (Psalms of Solomon 15.8-10) Undergird him with the strength to destroy the unrighteous rulers, to purge Jerusalem from gentiles who trample her to destruction; in wisdom and in righteousness to drive out the sinners from the inheritance; to smash the arrogance of sinners like a potter's jar. There will be no unrighteousness among them in his days, for all shall be holy, and their king shall be the Lord Messiah. (Psalms of Solomon 17.21-32) All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.” But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.” Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost” (Luke 19:7-10 ) Sharing a meal with a friend today is often no more than a convenient way of consuming food. In the Graeco-Roman and Jewish world of the first century, however, eating food with another person was far more significant socially: it indicated that the invited person was being accepted into a relationship in which the bonds were as close as in family relations. One normally Prof. Graham Stanton, invited to meals only people whom Cambridge University one considered social and religious equals The Cambridge Companion to Jesus (Cambridge University Press, 2001, page 69). Psalm 141:4. Let not my heart be drawn to what is evil, to take part in wicked deeds with men who are evildoers; let me not eat of their delicacies.” “Let the righteous be your dinner companions.” Ben Sira 9.16. “Do not invite everyone into your home, for many are the tricks of the crafty.” Ben Sira 11.29. Genizah Collection manuscript of ben Sira (Cambridge) Qumran Cave 1, where this text was discovered Rule of the Community: “If one is found among them who has lied knowingly concerning possessions, he shall be excluded from the pure food of the Many [i.e., the community] for a year and they shall withhold a quarter of his bread.” 1QS 6.24. “The Essene is not at liberty to partake of other men’s food.” Josephus, Jewish War 2.129-144. Concerning tax collectors who enter the house—the house is unclean. Concerning thieves who enter the house—only the place trodden by the feet of the thieves is unclean. And what do they render unclean? The foods, and the liquids, and the clay utensils which are open. But the couches and the seats and clay utensils which are sealed with a tight seal are clean.
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