Farrer fails to get a look in

Today's post on Jesus Creed, Knowing the Currents 2 was one of those useful reality checks for Q sceptics like me. In summarising the "basic streams that flowed into this current", i.e. "Gospel Criticism", Scot McKnight summarizes source criticism and writes that "The basic theories are what I call the Oxford hypothesis [= the Two-Source Theory] and then also the Griesbach hypothesis." So the Farrer Theory fails to get a look in. Perhaps Scot is right that the Two-Source Theory and Griesbach deserve to be listed side by side as the basics, but I would want to add several brief comments: (1) Griesbach has had no real currency in the UK since Farmer revived it in the US; (2) An adherent of the Griesbach theory recently told me that he thought Farrer had now edged ahead of Griesbach in the US, and it clearly gave him no pleasure to say this; (3) Curiously, the Farrer Theory is itself an "Oxford hypothesis" since it originated there and was dominant for a long time (though not since Christopher Tuckett arrived in Oxford in the 90s); (4) One of the three books Scot recommends for exploring the currents, Sanders and Davies's Studying the Synoptic Gospels, in fact advocates the Farrer Theory.

Jesus Creed Historical Jesus Series: Third Quest and Summing Up

Over on Jesus Creed, Scot McKnight's fine Historical Jesus series continues with the Third Quest and Summing Up (see my previous comments on Jesus Creed Historical Jesus Series: Jesus Seminar and Jesus Creed Historical Jesus Series: Bultmann). As usual, there are a several comments I would like to add. On the Third Quest, I think Scot is quite right that "its driving force seems to be showing the Jewishness of Jesus and how Jesus fit into the socio-political currents of his day"; I am less sure, though, whether "it is concerned with a more positive appropriation of the Gospels and a less skeptical approach to them". Certainly that is the case with Tom Wright, who coined the term "third quest", but I am less sure whether it fits other so-called third questers like Geza Vermes and Ed Sanders. I suppose the question here is less sceptical than what? Ed Sanders is in fact far more sceptical of our ability to reconstruct Jesus' sayings than were new questers like Käsemann but at the same time he does think that there is a lot that can be said with confidence about Jesus, and he begins Jesus and Judaism with a list of those almost indisputable facts.

In the Summing Up post, I want to quibble with a couple of things. First, Scot says:

Above all and over everything in historical Jesus studies is an echo of something Schweitzer said long ago: When historical Jesus scholars look down into the deep well of the evidence for Jesus they tend to see a Jesus that looks alot like themselves.

Although this image is often attributed to Schweitzer, it in fact comes from George Tyrrell, who wrote:

The Christ that Harnack sees, looking back through nineteen centuries of Catholic darkness, is only the reflection of a Liberal Protestant face, seen at the bottom of a deep well.

(George Tyrrell, Christianity at the Crossroads (London and New York: Longmans, Green and Co, 1909), 44 [world cat link]). I am grateful to Ken Olson for digging this out during an interesting thread on the topic on the Xtalk mailing list several years ago. Before then, I had myself often attributed the "well" image to Schweitzer.

Scot continues:

Liberals find a liberal Jesus; conservatives find a conservative Jesus. No one doesn’t care — don’t let them fool you. Which means what? We need serious deconstruction every time we read a book about Jesus. Every time; every book; mine too. Everyone wants Jesus on their side.

There is unquestionably a lot of truth in this, but I think we need to be careful. There are some historians who appear to have a better claim than others of not reconstructing Jesus sympathetic to their own views. I think E. P. Sanders is, again, the outstanding example here. But I would add that Dale Allison often confesses himself troubled by the historical Jesus, especially with respect to his imminent eschatology. I share that anxiety. I've noticed a danger in teaching related to this too. If one stresses too strongly the extent to which people construct Jesus in their own image, students can take it as an subtle invitation to do the same. It's one of the reasons I like to spend a good deal of time on Schweitzer in my opening class when I teach the Historical Jesus, to introduce students to the notion of struggling with what historical investigation can reveal.

One or two other queries:

Second, the driving force of the historical Jesus quest is the desire to wedge apart the Church’s beliefs about Jesus (the Gospels, the Creeds) and what “disinterested” scholarship can recover about Jesus on the basis of historical methods.

Wouldn't Tom Wright go in this category? He resists the "wedge".

Fourth, I don’t think historical Jesus has any place in theological studies for the Church. To bracket off one’s theological views in order to study the historical Jesus and then to do theological studies on top of that bracketed-off-study-of-Jesus is a vicious circular argument. You won’t find the Church’s Jesus this way because you’ve decided the Church’s Jesus isn’t allowed at the table! Historical Jesus studies is for historians.

Although I understand the point being made here, I would want to add that the doctrine of the incarnation itself gives sufficient reason for Christians to be interested in historical Jesus studies.

Fifth, still, nearly every historical Jesus scholar I know — and I know most of them — believes in the portrait of Jesus they construct on the basis of the historical methods. John Dominic Crossan and Marc Borg and Tom Wright and Dick Horsley et al believe, so it seems to me, in the Jesus they have constructed. (We all do this, don’t we?)

I don't think so; cf. the example of Ed Sanders, for example. (Am I beginning to sound like a Johnny-one-note?). And if this is true, then it should be resisted and criticized, or we have not learnt Schweitzer's lesson, right?

One last point of interest (to me):

Sixth, historical Jesus studies have waned significantly in the last ten years. The hey day was the 80s and 90s but the creative work has been done, climaxing perhaps in Tom Wright’s big book, and mostly the conversation has grown stale. What used to attract hundreds to academic sessions now attracts 30 or 40.

I hadn't thought of things like this, but it's a very interesting point. I wonder if there is a danger that we have rather domesticated and normalized historical Jesus studies too far. There is so much of it; it is so much in the mainstream that it has become somewhat less exciting. I am tempted to add that I have not seen anything in twenty years that begins to approach Sanders's Jesus and Judaism for stimulation and interest, but then I really would sound like a Johnny-one-note.

Jesus Creed Historical Jesus Series: Jesus Seminar

Scot McKnight's Jesus Creed series on Historical Jesus studies continues with the Jesus Seminar (see my previous comments in Jesus Creed Historical Jesus Series: Bultmann). Under his summary of the criteria used by the Jesus Seminar, Scot writes:

2. If a saying or event is found in more than one of the Gospel sources then it is from Jesus. This like the “more than one witness” element in law. If it is found in Mark and in Q and in “M” (stuff only in Matthew) and “L” (stuff only in Luke) and in John and in Gospel of Thomas etc it is more likely to have been said or done by Jesus. The less sources, the less provable. (Jesus practiced table fellowship with sinners.)

I want to question this. My reading of the Jesus Seminar publications is that they in fact privilege only two alleged sources, Q and the Gospel of Thomas. A given feature can occur in Mark, Q, M and L and still not be red; indeed it will often not be pink. A good example of this is all apocalyptic Son of Man material, which is witnessed in all of those strands, Mark, Q, M and L, but which is never given a red/pink colouring by the Jesus Seminar. For material to get through their filter, it needs ideally to witnessed by Q1 (the earliest layer of Q) and the Gospel of Thomas. A good example is Q 6.20 // Thomas 54, "Blessed are the poor".

In practice, the criterion of multiple attestation is not especially important for the Jesus Seminar. The Parable of the Good Samaritan, for example, is red, in spite of the fact that it is only attested in one, late Gospel source (L).

Jesus Creed Historical Jesus Series: Bultmann

Scot McKnight is running an excellent series on the Historical Jesus over on the Jesus Creed blog. Part 2 is headed Bultmann to the Jesus Seminar but focuses on Rudolf Bultmann. There is one comment I'd like to question:

If the days of Reimarus to Schweitzer were the old quest, the period of Bultmann is the “no” quest.

Dale Allison argues in "The Secularizing of the Historical Jesus" (which used to be available online, and which you can still grab from the archive.org if you don't have access to his recent book in which it appears) that the period of "no quest" or "non quest" is a phantom, and I think he makes his case effectively. As Allison points out, many books about the historical Jesus were produced during that period, e.g. most famously by Joachim Jeremias. The idea of a "no quest" really only comes from a particular reading of Bultmann's students' supposed relaunching of the quest in the 1950s and 1960s.

While on the topic, it is worth pointing out that one can read some Bultmann online; I've lifted the following from the relevant lists on the New Testament Gateway:

Rudolf Bultmann & Five Critics, Kerygma and Myth
Full version from Religion On-Line of the English edition of a famous book featuring Bultmann's essay "New Testament and Mythology", answers by five critics (Julius Schniewind, Ernst Lohmeyer, Helmut Thielicke, Friedrich K. Schumann & Austin Farrer) and Bultmann's responses.

Rudolf Bultmann, Jesus and the Word
Full reproduction of the English translation of Bultmann's classic book of 1926, prepared for Religion On-Line by Ted & Winnie Brock.

Blogging to market your book: don't

On Jesus Creed, Scot McKnight has a great post on Blogs: A Word for Authors, with a strong prohibition: "If you have written a book, don’t create a blog to market your book". I have been asked the question by authors too, "I'm thinking of starting up a blog to get some feedback on my book", etc., and invariably the person asking the question is not a consumer of blogs, something that is unlikely to lead to successful blogging. If you solo-blog, i.e. don't interact with any other blogs, you simply won't get much attention anyway, unless, I suppose, you are a huge name. An N.T. Wright blog or a Bart Ehrman blog would, I'm sure, get some attention.

One qualifier, though, to Scot's remarks. It is quite possible for someone to begin a blog in connection with a publication, and then to move on from there. And that is one of the keys of successful blogging, to let your blog evolve. I may be wrong, but I think that James Tabor's Jesus Dynasty Blog began as a venue for information and discussion on Tabor's book The Jesus Dynasty, but it has evolved into a blog that discusses a variety of other issues related to Tabor's research, and it's one I always enjoy reading.