The main sources of information about Jesus consist of the New Testament canon, the "apocryphal" gospels, Roman historical records and references from the early Church Fathers. The New Testament canon comprises letters written by St. Paul to the churches he founded in Asia, the four Gospels, the book of Acts and other material. For a full understanding of Jesus, we also need to take account of the language of the region and the culture he lived in. It is also helpful to consider similar people who had a popular following and were contemporaries of his. We also have the doubtful benefit of a century and a half of textual criticism, concerned with the Synoptic problem. That is, why the first three Gospels are so similar and yet so different?
Two seminal works seeking to understand the historical Jesus are Holtzmann 1863, "The Synoptic Gospels" (in German) and Schweizer 1910, "Quest of the Historical Jesus". Curiously, although obviously using the same material, they came to radically different conclusions. Holtzmann found Jesus to have been an idealist, trying to create the ideal Kingdom, i.e. the Kingdom of God, who put his ideas to the test in Jerusalem with disastrous results. Schweizer found Jesus to be a deluded visionary. One reason for the difference is undoubtedly that both assumed the Gospels were biographical in a modern sense. The other possibility is that they both projected the aspirations of their own time and culture on to Jesus. (E P Sanders and M Davies, 1996, pp. 25-27)
St. Paul's letters make little or no reference to the historic Jesus, and to that extent form an obstacle. His letters reveal a rapidly- evolving theology, based squarely on the Jewish scriptures with some Messianic material included. The historical facts on which his theology revolves are the death and resurrection of Jesus. For Paul, it is the post-resurrection Christ of faith, not the Jesus of History, who has revealed God's purposes in the last days. There is a little historic material present, even so. Apparently in answer to questions from the churches addressed, St. Paul reiterates the ritual of the "Last Supper"(1 Cor.11:23f.) and gives some teaching on divorce, some of which he ascribes to Jesus. (1 Cor. 7:10f.). But there is one hint that there was extant a body of knowledge about Jesus. "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly" (Col. 3:16) is a clear indication that some sayings of Jesus were available to him and the churches 50-60 C.E.
The Gospels themselves are an obstacle to recovering the historical Jesus. Holtzmann and Schweizer may have misconstrued their genre, missing out on the important fact they are proclamation (Greek - Kerygma) rather than history, but all four are different kinds of proclamation. Form and Redaction criticism have revealed that the canonic Gospels were written for particular communities at different times. What we can infer from this is that the historic Jesus is present in the Gospels, but his actions and words have been placed in artificial situations to create particular emphases. In the healing of the woman with an issue of blood, Mark (Mark 5:25f.) has the healing resulting from the divine power surrounding Jesus. There is a large crowd and Jesus does not immediately know who had touched his cloak. Matthew (Matt. 9:20f.)has the healing following Jesus's words to the woman. There is no crowd, just an exchange one-on-one. Mark's emphasis is on the "miracle-worker" character of Jesus. Matthew plays down the "miracle-worker" and portrays Jesus as a teacher and healer. In contrast to the Synoptics, the Gospel of Thomas is mainly a context-free collection of sayings of Jesus which have some parallels in the synoptic Gospels. It is tempting to relate St. Paul's "... words of Christ..." to this Gospel, but in the absence of further evidence it can only be regarded as an example of what he meant.
Source Criticism has been an obstacle until recently , because of unscientific attempts to simplify the Synoptic problem, based on untenable assumptions. The most damaging has been the "Two-source" assumption that Matthew and Luke "copied" Mark's gospel and a hypothetical lost Gospel known as "Q" (from the German "quelle" - source). There is the variant on this theme due to Griesbach, who asserts that Mark and Luke "copied" Matthew's Gospel. A more recent and equally unscientific approach is that of Farrer, and expanded on by Goulder, who reject the concept of "Q" entirely. They assert that Luke used only Mark, Matthew used Mark and the Jewish scriptures and that the "Q" material was composed (i.e. invented) by Luke and Matthew. (E P Sanders and M Davies, 1996, pp.93-97) The damaging effects of over-simplification come when we try to validate the Gospel material to assess its authenticity. The nub of the problem is that using this model of transmission, the Gospels cannot be used to authenticate each other. Some convoluted criteria need to be applied, in essence to take the overlapping material out of the frame and compare the rest with contemporary Jewish thought. The outcome is that the historical Jesus is well-hidden and we can only be certain of a few things. E P Sanders, (1985) pp. 326-327 concludes that there are only five things of which we can be "virtually certain", all of which have the central theme of Jewish restoration eschatology. The effect of the over-simplification is clearly that the authenticity of these primary sources has been virtually negated and therefore the historicity of their content is put in jeopardy.
The compiling of the Gospels as we have them today was evidently a much more complex process than any of these hypotheses. The differences between the synoptics point to a multiplicity of sources, only a selection of which were available to each Gospel writer. Also these sources were developed and added to over the period of time the Gospels were being written. One of the more recent attempts to describe the complexity is due to Boismard (E P Sanders and M Davies, 1996, pp.105f) If in addition, we take account of the later ascription of Luke-Acts to the travelling companion of St. Paul, there is a possible mechanism of transmission dating from Paul's stay in Jerusalem 58-60 C.E. which would give a measure of authenticity to the overlapping parts of Luke- Mark and Luke-Matthew and restore some of their historicity. J.D Crossan (1991) has evolved a method of authenticating the Gospels using a wide variety of sources, and compiling lists of corresponding material from different time zones with multiple attestation.
During the third and fourth centuries, the creeds and liturgies of the Church developed. They form a further obstacle to reaching the historic Jesus. After reviewing the second-generation theology of the early church, J.G Dunn concludes, "In the beginnings of Christology, we are not yet dealing with the myth of a heavenly figure who comes down from heaven to redeem mankind" (J.G. Dunn 1980 p 262) The credal basis for the Divine-Human Christ is St. Paul's theology, and an interpretation of John's Gospel. One interpretation of the latter is that it represents an early, possibly the earliest, written statement of Christ's pre-existence in heaven as a heavenly being. The synoptic Gospels and St. Paul's letters only go as far as suggesting that God's Spirit was the prime mover behind Jesus Christ's special powers on Earth. His obedience to God's commission was the reason for his exaltation to heaven as God's right-hand man. (Philippians 2:1-11) The creeds have developed these ideas. They assume Jesus' pre-existence with God and his divine nature. There is an inherent dilemma in this. Monotheism cannot divide God. Therefore, Jesus Christ must be God. But there is a further complication. St. Paul in his letter to the Philippian Church portrayed Jesus Christ as the second Adam. It is Jesus Christ's humanity which is effective in our restoration. So to avoid demolishing St. Paul's theology, the creeds must represent Jesus Christ as fully human and fully divine. If we read the Gospels in the light of the creeds' view of Jesus, the historic figure becomes largely irrelevant except as a vehicle for God's redemptive plan for mankind.
Over the intervening centuries, the use of the bible has formed an obstacle. Two extremes have proved unhelpful. The fundamentalist approach takes all the New Testament at face value as equally inspired and historic and ignores other sources which add to understanding. Jesus can then be made to appear in a number of guises, depending on the current need. This Easter, the Churches publicity organisation portrayed Jesus as the freedom fighter (modern Zealot?) Che Guevara. Using the words "Meek. Mild. As if!" they suggest against the biblical evidence that Jesus stood for power through violence. The other, liberal, approach has already been discussed above. Perhaps its greatest error is to disregard the basic integrity of the Gospel writers. Strauss in his 1817 "Life of Christ Critically Examined" suggested that the Gospels were written in the age of "myth", where stories were used as a vehicle to teach ideas. The so-called "Age of Enlightenment" devalued the Gospels by the fallacious argument that since they described miracles, which were impossible, they could not be trusted.
Before the twentieth century, little was known about the contemporary Jewish culture, the everyday language used and Jewish writings of Jesus' time. Ignorance of these matters are a real barrier to understanding the historic Jesus. Now, following archeological discoveries, there is a fuller understanding of the culture in which Jesus lived. It would be easy to assume Jesus lived a life not unlike a villager of one's own age. Perhaps an little more primitive than today - more like eighteenth century England? Nothing could be further from reality. Notwithstanding the military occupation, of Palestine, society was divided economically between the peasants and their patron. Land was the main source of wealth. At a more personal level, the family unit was motivated by honour and shame. Every encounter outside the family was potentially a challenge to honour. Reading the Gospels in this context places the historic Jesus in a totally different light.
Over the last twenty centuries the historical Jesus has been covered up by layer upon layer of theological concepts. Attempts to recover the history must peel off these layers one by one. During the last forty years, the process has been enriched by many archeological discoveries, which shed light on the time of Jesus. There has been an increasing willingness for scholars to use parallel Jewish material, which indicates that Jesus was not typical of other Jewish sects. His was a peasant, country movement. His followers included people who might be regarded as "wicked", and included women. The movement he started is described by J.D. Crossan (1991) p225f. as a "brokerless kingdom"; that is one, which was without a power base, mediating by going out to the people in their homes, with the proclamation of the coming Kingdom and healings as the seal on its closeness. We have in the Gospels a record of how the early church both remembered and proclaimed Jesus . Whilst the various methods of analysis, Source, Form and Redaction Criticism, warn against taking the material as literally or historically true, they nevertheless provide a framework for assessing its relative authenticity. There is, unfortunately, no way in which we can have any clear notion of Jesus' aims. It is clear his mission was to proclaim God's coming Kingdom; the Gospels and the conduct of the disciples after his death makes this certain. But how, when and where he thought it would overwhelm the Roman Empire is unknown and unknowable.
Bibliography:
J.H. Charlesworth, "Jesus Within Judaism" SPCK 1989
J.D Crossan, "The Historical Jesus" T&T Clark 1991
J.D.G. Dunn, "Christology in the Making", SCM 1980
E.P Sanders, "Jesus and Judaism" SCM 1985
E.P. Sanders & M Davies, "Studying the Synoptic Gospels", SCM 1996
Howard Jackson 7 April 1999.