The Question of Uniqueness in the Teaching of Jesus

This week's reading for my Historical Jesus class includes a really wonderful piece by E. P. Sanders.  It's been available on the web for a while courtesy of Rob Bradshaw.  It's a real gem:

The Question of Uniqueness in the Teaching of Jesus

Professor E P Sanders

The Ethel M. Wood Lecture 15 February 1990

One of the favourite things which New Testament scholars and, probably, Christians in general say about Jesus is that he was ‘unique’. If we think historically, we know two things about the topic from the outset: no two people are alike; there is nothing new under the sun. Like all clichés, these two are true, and the hard thing is to know how to apply them. In this respect these two statements are like general moral maxims and folk wisdom: one or the other will meet every situation, but you do not know in advance which formula to apply when. I live by two maxims: nothing ventured nothing gained, and better safe than sorry. My trouble has been venturing when I should have played safe and the reverse. But one of these two maxims is always true. So it is with regard to similarity and dissimilarity among human beings. Either 'nothing new’ will apply, or ‘no two people are alike’. They might even both apply at the same time, as clichés often do. My wife once said to me, on the same topic, ‘that’s just like a man’, and ‘only you could do something like that’.

That's how to begin a lecture! And he goes on with quotations from Jeremias on Jesus calling God "Abba" and from Hengel on Jesus' difference from Theudas and comments:

One of the most interesting things about saying that this or that is unique is that the claim implies what one might at first think to be uniqueness on the part of the claimant: that he or she is omniscient. Omniscience, it will turn out, is by no means unique to any individual New Testament scholar: most have it, or claim to have it. We should all, however, grant that our knowledge is limited. We have very few personal prayers from other Jews of the first century, and so are not able to prove a negative, that no ‘Jew’ (that is, no Jew other than Jesus) could have said abba. We possess no stories at all about how Theudas and others called their followers, and so we cannot say that only Jesus called people with an authority ‘grounded in God himself’.

And so it goes on. Great stuff.

Sanders and Crossan on Jesus and his Context (or Matrix)

Last year I mentioned an innovative piece of assessment, Sanders vs. Crossan through the Medium of Puppets. In my Historical Jesus course running at the moment at Duke, we came to both Sanders and Crossan this week. I decided not to share the puppet versions but instead played this excellent piece in which Ed Sanders explains his approach to Jesus and Judaism. It's about eight minutes long, just a bit shorter than your average NT Pod episode:



I think this is a fantastic way of introducing some of the central concerns in Sanders's approach to the Historical Jesus. It has a resonance with our students too because it is filmed here at Duke.

If we had had time, I would have loved also to have shown this similar length piece in which John Dominic Crossan explains his name and then his approach to the Historical Jesus, with stress on Jesus' "matrix":



I really like this piece. I am sympathetic with what he says about Jesus' "matrix", and especially avoiding the term "background". This goes back at least to Geza Vermes's insistence, in Jesus the Jew in 1973, that we avoid seeing historical materials as "background" to the New Testament and instead think of them as witnesses. I don't think the term "matrix" can ever quite catch on in this context, though, given the way that it makes us think of The Matrix. But perhaps James McGrath would disagree and perhaps today's students are not as familiar with The Matrix as students were a decade ago.

E. P. Sanders and Walter Matthau

I have always thought that E. P. Sanders looks a bit like Walter Matthau.  I remember sitting in one of his lectures in Oxford and watching someone in front of me produce a brilliant caricature, and it looked rather like Walter Matthau but with a bit less hair.  Unfortunately, there are not many pictures of Sanders available online so that I can compare the two men, but I am sure that those who have met Ed Sanders will know what I mean.

Sanders vs. Crossan through the medium of puppets

Struggling to think of innovative assignments for your students?  How about asking them to have a go at expressing the views of key scholars in the discipline through the medium of a "Puppetual Debate"?  Although the student concerned has not quite got the likenesses of E. P. or Dom right, let alone the voices, the content is pretty accurate:



Update (15:13): James McGrath rightly notes that "sock puppets do not appear on biblioblogs nearly enough". Nor Mr Potatoheads, of course. James wonders whether the sock puppet versions of Sanders and Crossan in debate might be more popular than the real characters would be in debate. In fact, I've often thought it a shame that Crossan and Sanders have not had a good head-to-head debate, at least not as far as I am aware.

E. P. Sanders, Is Paul's Legacy Relevant Today?

New on Youtube from Villanova University is a guest lecture from Ed Sanders, "Is Paul's Legacy Relevant Today?" The lecture itself was given this time last year. It is wonderful viewing and listening:

E. P. Sanders's Academic Autobiography Back online

I am happy to announce that Ed Sanders's "Academic Autobiography" is now back online:

Comparing Judaism and Christianity: An Academic Autobiography
A paper read at “New Views of First-Century Jewish and Christian Self-Definition: An International Conference in honor of E. P. Sanders”, April, 2003
E. P. Sanders
April-May 2004

If you have not read it before, I strongly recommend it. If you have already read it, read it again.

E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism on Duke TV

Duke Today reports on the two books recently published that honor Ed Sanders's work, Common Judaism and Redefining First Century Jewish and Christian Identities:

Duke Religion Professor E. P. Sanders Honored with New Books

The piece features a nice eight minute video interview:

E. P. Sanders and Moody Smith Reflect on Teaching

The latest edition of our Graduate Program in Religion Fall Newsletter features a real treat, reflections from Ed Sanders and Moody Smith on their experiences of teaching. The pieces are taken from a recent talk given at a lunch organized by the graduate students here:

GPR Newsletter Fall 2008 (PDF)

E.P. Sanders's piece, headed "Teaching and Learning", begins on page 3 and Moody Smith's, under the heading "Religion Graduate Students Luncheon", begins on p. 6. I strongly recommend them to you. Here is a quotation from Ed Sanders's piece to whet your appetite:

I shall briefly explain two of my efforts to get people actually to learn what is on the pages of the New Testament. Perhaps it should go without saying that this is a difficult task, but I shall nevertheless say something about the problem. The more time students have spent in church the more they think that the text consists of morals that are immediately applicable to themselves and that all the words meant then what they mean now. In fact, the worldviews of the biblical authors are not our worldviews, and it is difficult for people to comprehend things that they cannot fit into their own mental universe. It is in some ways easier for people to learn about an unknown religion than about their own. Now for my two efforts . . .

E. P. Sanders to give Franke Lecture at Yale

If you are anywhere near Yale, this will be well worth taking the time to get to:

“Law vs. Religion” Topic of Lecture at Yale’s Whitney Humanities Center

New Haven, Conn. — E.P. Sanders, Arts and Sciences Professor of Religion Emeritus at Duke University, will launch the 2008 Franke Lecture series on “Religion and Law in Historical Perspective” with a talk at 5 p.m. on February 6 at the Whitney Humanities Center Auditorium, 53 Wall Street.

Titled “Does Law Debase the Human-Divine Relationship? The Christian Charge Against Judaism,” the talk is free and open to the public . . . .

. . . . The Franke Lectures are made possible by the generosity of Richard and Barbara Franke, and are intended to present important topics in the humanities to a wide and general audience. The 2008 series explores the historical relation between religion and law in Jewish, Christian and contemporary legal thought, and is organized in conjunction with the undergraduate seminar taught by Christine Hayes, professor of Religious Studies in Classical Judaica at Yale.

Divided by a common history

I am gathering together some extra bibliography at the moment to lend a hand to students on my Historical Jesus class, some of whom are writing about particular Historical Jesus scholars, and I read a highly complimentary review of Sanders by Fredriksen, which begins with this quotable passage:

Americans and the British, the old joke goes, are divided by a common language. Jews and Christians —alas, no joke —are divided by a common history. I refer not to the history of contempt, coercion and abuse that has characterized prevailing Christian attitudes toward and treatment of Jews and Judaism from the second century through (at least) the twentieth. That shameful story is well known. I have in mind, rather, the history of late Second Temple Judaism in Roman Judea, and more specifically the history of the mission and message of Jesus of Nazareth. That is the history that continues to divide Christians and Jews. But, no less, it is a history that binds them, because they share it. And when it is better understood, I am convinced, it is a history that can also unite them.

Paula Fredriksen, Review of E. P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus in Review & Expositor 103/1 (Winter 2006): 234-236 (234).

Mark-Q Overlaps III: Minor Agreements between Mark and Luke

This is now the third post in the current series on Mark-Q Overlaps, in which I would like to respond to comments from Christopher Tuckett in a review of my book.

3. Major Agreements between Matthew and Luke; Minor Agreements between Mark and Luke

Christopher Tuckett (Review of The Case Against Q, NovT 46 (2004): 401-403) acknowledges my points concerning Mark-Q overlap passages summarized in the previous post and comments:

In these passages [viz. Mark-Q overlaps], one can indeed refer to Luke’s use of Matthew’s additions to Mark, and/or to extensive non-trivial Matthew-Luke agreements. However, any non-Q theory has to explain Luke’s apparently almost pathological refusal in some of these texts to use any Markan material at all (e.g. the Beelzebul controversy, or the Mustard Seed). As Gerald Downing argued many years ago, Luke’s procedure on the Farrer-Goulder-Goodacre model appears totally at odds with his procedure elsewhere (where, according to Goodacre and others, Luke knows Mark far better than Matthew and uses Mark in preference to Matthew). In these passages, Luke must have studiously avoided all the points where Matthew and Mark agree and reproduced only Matthew’s additions to Mark. (402).

The description of the data here is inaccurate. It is not the case that Luke lacks Marcan material in these passages. Both of the specific examples given by Tuckett, the Beelzebub pericope (Matt. 12.25-32 // Mark 3.23-30 // Luke 11.17-23, 12.10) and the Mustard seed (Matt. 13.31-2 // Mark 4.30-32 // Luke 13.18-19), feature several triple agreements, as well as minor agreements between Mark and Luke. On Sanders's count (E. P. Sanders, "Mark-Q Overlaps and the Synoptic Problem", NTS (1973): 453-65, 458), the Beelzebub Controversy features 31 triple agreements, 35 Matthew-Mark agreements, 5 Mark-Luke agreements and 65 Matthew-Luke agreements. Similarly, the Mustard Seed, on Sanders's count, features 14 triple agreements, 11 Matthew-Mark agreements, 6 Mark-Luke agreements and 11 Matthew-Luke agreements. There is no "almost pathological refusal" to include Marcan material here. It is true, of course, that there is a substantial degree of agreement between Matthew and Luke against Mark in these passages, and it is this that forces Q theorists to view these as "Mark-Q overlap"; there are far too many Matthew-Luke agreements for these to be the result of independent redaction.

Let us be clear about how the situation is explained on the Farrer Theory. It is quite straightforward. On occasions like this, where Matthew is the middle term among the Synoptics, Luke is working with Matthew as his primary source and not Mark. The usual triple tradition situation, where there are major agreements with Mark and minor agreements with Matthew, is reversed and, instead, there are major agreements with Matthew and minor agreements with Mark. If Luke is working with both Matthew and Mark, it is not surprising that on occasions Luke turns to Matthew as his primary source, even in triple tradition material. It is interesting to see how often this happens where Matthew has a fuller account than Mark, in the John the Baptist material, the Temptations, Beelzebub, the Mission discourse.

The article to which Tuckett refers, by F. Gerald Downing, has now been answered persuasively by Ken Olson, "Unpicking on the Farrer Theory" in Mark Goodacre and Nicholas Perrin (eds.), Questioning Q (London: SPCK, 2004): 127-50.

Simon Gathercole on Sanders

Simon Gathercole comments with respect to recent comments here (Simon Gathercole on the New Perspective on Paul and E. P. Sanders's Relationship to W. D. Davies):

The question of Sanders' legacy as far as Paul himself is concerned is an interesting one.

I suppose I'm of the view that Sanders' Pauline exegesis was much less successful than his treatment of Judaism: as William Horbury put it in his review of PPJ, Paul and his Jewish contemporaries end up - on Sanders' approach - 'passing like ships in the night'. There are some who have nevertheless followed this approach - in his own way, Lou Martyn does. But it seems to me to have been the Dunn-Wright trajectory of Sanders interpretation that has really taken off.

But we're all shaped by our own locations in this. I studied in Durham, so perhaps am bound to think this way. You - being an Oxford and a Duke man - might be just as bound to have a more Sanders-centric view!!!

I want to comment properly on Simon's article in Christianity Today, all the more so as I am currently teaching Paul, and will do so in due course, and bear the above in mind, though I won't be apologizing for my Sanders-centric view!

E. P. Sanders's relationship to W. D. Davies

In a recent post on Sibboleth on Degree Value, Daniel Kirk reflects on what has happened at Duke, the home of his PhD, in complimentary terms. He is less happy with what has happened at his seminary, which has published a book called Justification in Christ: God's Plan for Us in Justification. The book appears to be more in the American "Reformed" backlash against the New Perspective on Paul. There is a sample chapter available which at one point describes the work of E. P. Sanders. As usual on such occasions, the focus is all on Sanders's arguments about Judaism, and his contribution on Paul is largely ignored. I would like to comment a bit more on this trend in future posts, partly in response to Simon Gathercole's recent article in Christianity Today, and because I am thinking about these things in relation to a course I am teaching at the moment on Paul. But I wanted to make a minor correction in relation to this sentence:

A sea-change came with the work of E. P. Sanders (son-in-law to W. D. Davies). His work Paul and Palestinian Judaism took further the trajectory of his predecessors in a way that has revolutionized the map of New Testament, and particularly Pauline, studies in the past quarter century.

The comment in brackets is incorrect, a mistake that may arise from thinking that Margaret Davies is W. D.'s daughter (she is not).

New Testament Scholars on Wikipedia

One way of testing claims about the intrinsic and insurmountable problems with Wikipedia is to ask how good it tends to be in its entries on individual scholars. Ben Witherington recently commented on the problems he saw with Wikipedia, with a strong "keep away" message. It made me wonder what the Wikipedia article on Ben Witherington looked like and in fact, it is not bad. The only problem with it is that it is a little on the terse side; it needs someone with some knowledge and expertise to add some more detail. Indeed, it is one of those articles that has been tagged: "This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources."

That reminds me that I have only ever created one new Wikipedia page myself, and that is on Michael Goulder. I wanted to do this in part to test the claims about the unreliability of Wikipedia. Would people come in and deface what I outlined on Michael Goulder? On the contrary. There is simply a welcome invitation, to me or someone else, to improve the article:

This article or section needs sources or references that appear in reliable, third-party publications. Alone, primary sources and sources affiliated with the subject of this article are not sufficient for an accurate encyclopedia article. Please include more appropriate citations from reliable sources.

This is something that seldom gets mentioned by those who prefer not to engage critically with Wikipedia, that it actually encourages authors and editors to provide proper citations for the claims that are being made, a very useful encouragement to students who are learning about academic writing.

The only other one I've contributed to has been the entry on E. P. Sanders, where I made one or two minor edits to improve accuracy, and added a couple of references. That was over a year ago, and they have not been changed or edited away in the interim.

In this category, my feeling tends to be more sympathetic to those who wish to engage critically with Wikipedia than with those who wish to turn their backs on it, but perhaps that will change in time as the site continues to grow.

Tom Wright on Easter

Here's one I missed over Easter, but it's linked on the N. T. Wright Page, from The Guardian's weekly Face to Faith column:

Face to faith
In these troubled times, Easter's message of resurrection is a powerful one, says Tom Wright

A couple of features of interest for academic NT geeks:

We reflect on, and mourn, the ruin of the world and the folly of humankind. We look in the mirror and see our own shame and sin. And then we contemplate Jesus's suffering and death at the heart of the whole thing: the place where the arrogance of empire, the frenzy of religion and the betrayal of friends all rush together and do their worst.

Notice how central the motif of empire is becoming in Wright's thinking, and not just in discussion of Paul (cf. the fresh perspective on Paul and Empire). Also notice:

That's why the Easter stories tumble out in bits and pieces, with breathless chasings to and fro and garbled reports - and then, stories like nothing else before or since. As the great New Testament scholar EP Sanders put it, the writers were trying to describe an experience that does not fit a known category. They knew all about ghosts and visions, and they knew it wasn't anything like that.

I like the characterization of Sanders, whom I once described in print as "the greatest living New Testament scholar", though I don't think he would be so keen on the sentence that follows here, about ghosts and visions, which is pure Wright.

E. P. Sanders in Texas

Thanks to Mikeal Parsons for pointing out that Ed Sanders will be lecturing next week in Texas, first at Baylor University (see PDF flier below). The second is the Plenary Address of the SBL-SW in Dallas on March 3, where the title will be “Covenantal Nomism Revisited.” Here's the flyer for the first event:

E. P. Sanders Lecture at Baylor, March 3 2007 (Flyer)

Historical Jesus articles update

A couple of updates on my Historical Jesus: Articles page: revised URL for Robert Miller's Jesus Seminar and Its Critics and the addition of E. P. Sanders, "The Question of Uniqueness in the Teaching of Jesus" (cf. my previous blog post on this).

E. P. Sanders on the Uniqueness of Jesus' Teaching

Rob Bradshaw continues his fantastic work on BiblicalStudies.org.uk of making available a huge range of on-line articles and lectures. The latest is my favourite so far:

E. P. Sanders, "The Question of Uniqueness in the Teaching of Jesus" (London: University of London, 1990)
The Ethel M. Wood Lecture 15 February 1990

Just to whet your appetite, here is one excerpt:

Selective reading combines with confessional interest to produce claims of uniqueness.

People who read more widely than others, such as Davies, make fewer claims of uniqueness and put them more appropriately: this would have struck the hearers as fresh. Occasionally, however, he too claims uniqueness (for example, by ignoring Lev. 19.34), and it will always turn out that he should have read one more passage.

If we removed confessional interest entirely, we would find people making no stronger claims than ‘unparalleled as far as I know’. After all, what percentage of the total wisdom of the world is available to even the most diligent reader? The pronouncement that something is ‘unique’, as I said at the outset, is among other things a claim to omniscience: I know everything, and there are no parallels. This is an extremely unscholarly attitude. The more one studies, the less one should hold it.

Sanders was (and is) something of a hero of mine, and this article is Sanders at his best.