At one of South Africa's leading blog sites Jarred Cinman has posted an entry called "Jesus is a myth". In it he looks mostly at the question of how we can read the Bible, and what consequences that has for Christians and others. His biggest question is this one, "And, importantly, did Jesus exist at all?"

This is an excellent question! If we can prove that Jesus didn't actually exist, then we know that Christianity is a lie and all self-professing Christians are deluded (which is good fun!). I posted a response to his post giving an overview of how first century Biblical scholars have approached the question of Jesus over the last 150 years. This is a question that the Church has trained its people not to ask, for to be a signed-up Church member you need to assent to a few things, one of them being the existence of Jesus - which is exactly why I have never heard a sermon in church talking about the historicity of Jesus, because for most Christians that's a non-question. But for everybody else it's just about the first thing to ask of Christians. I hope this post gives you something to work with.

Technorati Tags: Bible, Ernst Käsemann, Geza Vermes, Gosples, hermeneutics, N.T. Wright, Nazi, New Testament, Quest for the historical Jesus

Good post, Jarred - no one is going to solve the question of God's existence with a one-and-final proof which will convince the other side (and just as well!). It's good to read you grappling with questions of hermeneutics (how to read the Bible) and epistemology (how do we know something is true) are vital questions - for non-religious as well as religious people. Part of the Nazi ideology was to remake Jesus into someone who was not particularly Jewish, and in fact was anti-Jewish (there's a chilling moment in the documentary film "Bonhoeffer" where the leaders of the church in Germany shake hands with - and in that sense "bless" - the Nazi leaders - a terrifying collusion between church and state). Serious historical work on Jesus needs to be done in every generation to answer the question, "Have we got it right?" otherwise we face the risk of making Jesus into whatever we want or need him to be, and fail to be faithful to history...and to Jesus.

You close off your post referring to reason and history - an excellent place to start when talking about Jesus. Are you familiar with the quest for the historical Jesus? It refers to scholars applying the historical methodologies of their day to distinguish the mythology from the history of Jesus. The first quest took place over 100 years ago when people first starting asking the question you're asking: "What, from a historical basis, can we say about Jesus?" This quest ended with Albert Schweitzer saying that Jesus was a wild-eyed apocalyptic prophet who died a failure. This was so shocking that the church said, "If that's what history tells us about Jesus then forget it!" and so historical worked stopped for about 50 years.

Then, in post World War 2 Europe there was a shrinking back in horror to what the Nazi's did in the Holocaust. How did such an advanced, civilised nation such as Germany do this unspeakable thing? Ernst Käsemann, in the early 50's, showed that by the Church not doing historical work on Jesus allowed for the opening up of a dangerous hermeneutic space which allowed the Nazi's to build their anti-Jewish rhetoric. And so the second quest for the historical Jesus was started, again looking at Jesus through the lens of history.

The current - and third quest (named by the first century historian N.T. Wright) - for the historical Jesus started again in the 70's with Geza Vermes, a first century scholar who published a book called "Jesus the Jew." At the time the title was shocking - people asked, "Jesus was a JEW?!?! I thought he was...a Christian!" And then they thought about it a bit more...and realised that of course Jesus was a Jew - but what kind of Jew was he?

And so we have serious historical work being done on Jesus (and his context) done by serious first century scholars - Christian, atheist and Jew. N.T. Wright, in an article entitled "The Historical Jesus and Christian Theology" writes:

"So what are we doing now, talking about the historical Jesus and Christian theology? We are taking Hermann Reimarus’s challenge seriously: investigate Jesus and see whether Christianity is not based on a mistake. [1] We are taking Albert Schweitzer’s challenge seriously: put Jesus within apocalyptic Judaism and watch bland unthinking dogma shiver in its shoes. [2] If this is too dangerous, escape routes are available. First, Wilhelm Wrede: Mark is theological fiction, and Jesus is a non- apocalpytic, teasing teacher. [3] This is alive and well over one hundred years later. Second, Martin Kähler: the true Christ is a Christ of faith detached from the Jesus of history. [4] This, too, is alive and well today. The church may urge this latter escape route, part of the academic guild may urge the former. Both should be resisted. Instead, we should accept both Reimarus’s challenge and Schweitzer’s proposal."

Much of what I've written above is laid out quite accessibly in a podcast by N.T. Wright called "What's the problem with Jesus?" Allow me to say that - unfortunately for you (sorry!) - the consensus across the entire spectrum of Jesus scholarship - atheist, Jew and Christian - is that there did exist a man who lived in first century Palestine who we know as Jesus (the most liberal scholars question whether Jesus said everything the Gospels say he did, but they're convinced as to his existence). The divergent historical view is that Jesus didn't actually exist, and no serious first century scholar endorses that view. Of course, it's much more fun to say that Jesus didn't exist, but - unfortunately again - this isn't being faithful to history and reason, both important criteria which you mentioned.

I realise this overlong comment doesn't address most of what you posted about, but I thought I'd start somewhere and give you some sources to dig your teeth in to :)

Saner - that was brilliant, I am a-gape with admiration.

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Posted by: nic paton 09 Jan, 2008 - 17:06:37

I'm agape with plagiarism, as anyone who has listened to N.T. Wright's podcast will know... :)

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Posted by: Roger Saner 10 Jan, 2008 - 16:12:17

Well, you take the historical approach, but I'll take the existential approach, though it actually links with what you say about the Nazis too.

Back in the old South Africa a group of Anglican friends and I had a rush of ecumenism to the head, and decided to visit the local Assemblies of God church. Parliament was debating the introduction of 90-day detention, and that night the preacher's topic was "Should the church oppose the 90-day detention clause?"

The preacher said it shouldn't, taking as his text "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's etc."

As we left he was standing at the door and asked me what I thought of his sermon. I said I disagreed with it. He asked me why. I said he should think of the question Jesus asked his questioners -- whose image and superscription was on the coin? I asked him to think of a 90-day detainee -- in whose image and likeness was he made - God's, or Caesar's?

The preacher got very angry with me, and said, "I've got lots of policemen in the church. They'll arrest you and put you in for 90 days."

Flash forward two years. A friend of mine, a Christian fellow-student at the university, was banned. Students held a poster protest outside the Pietermaritzburg city hall, with the SB taking photos of everyone from across the road.

The Christians held posters rather in the vein of what I had told the Assemblies of God pastor two years before -- making theological points. Mine read, "Jesus is our King, not Vorster".

A secular humanist fellow student was a bit unhappy about it, and thought the posters should reflect "wider human values". I said that from my point of view those values were actually narrower and derivative.

And then we were standing in the street, almost outnumbered by the SB, and along came an elderly woman, very angry, and shouted at me, in a German accent, "But Jesus didn't exist. He was a Fairy Story. He never existed!"

Now I've written that down, but it took place just as long ago as the life and ministry of Jesus did to those who wrote the gospels. And if this comment lasts for 2000 years, I wonder if people will read it then and say that Mr Vorster didn't exist, and the Security Police didn't exist, and my friend who was banned didn't exist.

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Posted by: Steve Hayes 10 Jan, 2008 - 17:39:53

Good to open up on good enquiring thinking and possibly finding a great way to dialogue through the mash of theology. It would be great to get in touch with you as I am busy looking at the future of the church in an African urban context.
Peter Veysie

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Posted by: petervey 11 Mar, 2008 - 12:22:22

Mmmm...theology mash-ups! Cool - the future of the church in an African urban context - sounds interesting. Would be great to get together sometime - I'm in Pretoria. Will you be coming along to the Alan Hirsch retreat?

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Posted by: Roger Saner 13 Mar, 2008 - 01:23:54

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