Historical Evidence

I recently received a giftcard to Barnes and Noble, for which I was extremely grateful. However, I sometimes have a hard time spending bookstore giftcards in the actual brick-and-mortar bookstore itself, unless of course that bookstore is Archives here in Pasadena. However, this time around I found two great books: Five Books of Moses by Robert Alter and Cities of God by Rodney Stark. I have already read Strak's Rise of Christianity and found it both fascinating and fun to read, so I have really been looking forward to his newer book on early Christian history. After finishing about 3/5 of the book, I've not been disappointed yet!

In an effort by the publisher of Cities to sell books, there is a quote from Booklist on the front cover that says the following: "This book will spark controversy." Of course, that piqued my interest, so I picked up the book and read the first few pages of the first chapter in the store. Here are the first two paragraphs:

New ccounts of early Christianity are everywhere. A book claiming that Jesus got married, fathered children, and died of old age has sold millions of copies. Bookstores are busting with 'new,' more 'enlightened' scriptures said to have been wrongly suppressed by the early church fathers. Often referred to as Gnostic gospels, these texts purport to have been written by a variety of biblical characters -- Mary Magdalene, St. James, St. John, Shem, and even Didymus Jude Thomas, self-proclaimed twin brother of Christ. Meanwhile, a group calling itself the Jesus Seminar receives national media attention each year as it meets to further reduce the 'authentic' words spoken by Jesus to an increasingly slim compendium of wise sayings.

But is any of this true? How can we know? Presumably, by assembling and evaluating the appopriate evidence. Unfortunately, far too many historians these days don't believe in evidence. They argue that since absolute truth must always elude the historian's grasp, 'evidence' is inevitably nothing but a biased selection of suspect 'facts.' Worse yet, rather than dismissing the entire historical undertaking as impossible, these same people use their disdain for evidence as a license to propose all manner of politicized historical fantasies or appealing to fictions on the grounds that these are just as 'true' as any other account. This is absurd nonsense. Reality exists and history actually occurs. The historian's task is to try to discover as accurately as possible what took place. Of course, we can never possess absolute truth, but that still must be the ideal goal that directs historical scholarship. The search for truth and the advance of human knowledge are inseparable: comprehension and civilization are one.

I guess Booklist was right, this book is controversial...and from the very first paragraphs!

Scholarly Arrogance: D.F. Strauss and F.C. Baur

As I read the first volume of William Baird's History of New Testament Research, I was struck by the arrogance of many of the scholars. Two shining examples are D.F. Strauss (1808-1874) and F.C. Baur (1792-1860). These two scholars, whose impact on the study of the NT cannot be underestimated, are the prime examples of the influence of German idealism (as first espoused by Hegel) on the study of the NT. I think a quote from each will indicate both their commitment to history and their arrogance with regard to their ability to discern said history.

Whether the unification of the divine and the human nature actually took place in Christ can be decided only by historians, not philosophers. (Strauss, In Defense of My Life of Jesus, 18).

Whether the person of Jesus of Nazareth really possesses the attributes which belong to the established concept of the Redeemer is in fact a purely historical question, which can be answered only through an historical investigation of the literary sources of the Gospel stories. (Baur, cited in Baird, History, 1:260)

There are, in my opinion, at least two problems with these quotes:

1. Both expect quite a bit out of historical investigation. How can trying to ascertain provable facts (as defined by nineteenth century standards) prove one way or another a proposition about Jesus that is beyond the limitations of Strauss' and Baur's sort of historical investigation, namely, the divinity of Jesus? By searching only for a particular set of data and excising the rest, Strauss and Baur succeeded in severing the Christ of faith from the Jesus of history.
   
2. Both Strauss and Baur have a presupposition that they take with them to the texts about Jesus -- that the supernatural is not possible. So is it any surprise that the texts of the NT are stripped bare of almost all of their meaning by these scholars since these very texts are filled with the supernatural on virtually every page? Perhaps they would have been better served by being open to the possibility of something beyond the scope of human understanding!
   

A Eulogy for Jesus by Ernest Renan

Ernest Renan (1823-1892), a French scholar, wrote the most popular biography of Jesus ever. Vie de Jésus first appeared in 1863 and was to become a "classic of French literature" (Baird, History of NT Research, 376). Renan, who did not believe in the bodily resurrection, wrote a eulogy for Jesus that I found interesting:

Rest now in thy glory, noble initiator. Thy work is completed; thy divinity is established. Fear no more to see the edifice of thy efforts crumble through a flaw. Henceforth, beyond the reach of frailty, thou shalt be present, from the height of thy divine peace, in the infinite consequences of thy acts. At the price of a few hours of suffering, which have not even touched thy great soul, thou hast purchased the most complete immortality. For thousands of years the world will extol thee. Banner of our contradictions, thou wilt be the sign around which will be fought the fiercest battles. A thousand times more living, a thousand times more loved since thy death than during the days of thy pilgrimage here below, thou wilt become to such a degree the corner-stone of humanity, that to tear thy name from this world would be to shake its foundations. Between thee and God, men will no longer distinguish. Complete conqueror of death, take possession of thy kingdom, whither, by the royal road thou hast traced, ages of adorers will follow thee. (Life of Jesus [New York: Modern Library, 1955], 368-69)

This passage hints at the fact that Renan believed that the early church invented Jesus' resurrection because of the "intense love which they bore toward him" (The Apostles, [New York: Carleton, 1886], 57). While I may disagree with Renan on the historicity of the resurrection, much of his eulogy beautifully describes the impact of the resurrection on the history of the world.