I don’t believe in the historical Jesus, at least if we take that term to refer to the person of Jesus as construed by the academic discipline of history, and as that term is used in contrast to the canonical Jesus, the person who emerges from the text of the New Testament. Academic pursuit of the historical Jesus has certainly yielded useful and important insights, but I don’t share some of the foundational postulates of how the historical Jesus is constructed—most importantly, I don’t accept the basic assumptions that that Jesus was not divine, and that he did not rise from the dead—so that I keep the historical Jesus at arm’s length when it comes to questions of belief. Some Christians, both in earlier times and at the present, have been and are happy to follow Jesus as a moral exemplar or a teacher of wisdom, but history is incapable of providing the Jesus I need, the atoning deity who rose from the dead. At best, the historical Jesus can provide useful and even profound insights with devotional relevance; at worst, the historical Jesus can be a distraction, a false promise of knowing Jesus without the mediation of scriptural text or ecclesiastic structure, or an idol that alienates devotion from the true object of worship. (We can expand the binary pair of the historical Jesus and the canonical Jesus to include the traditional Jesus, informed not only by scripture but also by two millennia of Christian thinking; the prophetic Jesus, based on all the previous and on modern visionary and revelatory experiences to authorized prophets; and the experiential Jesus, Jesus as we experience him through the mediation of the holy spirit. With all of these, including the first and the last, our understanding of Jesus is informed by the texts we read and the institutions in which we participate.)
It seems to me that similar issues arise with biblical textual criticism, one of the great intellectual projects of modernity. Textual criticism has proved itself to be a regular source of interesting and useful insights and alternative readings to consider. But by the late 1980s, the critique provided by the New Philology had made clear that textual criticism could not lead to a stable text, or to the original text, or to the authors’ original intentions, let alone to the word of God. Textual criticism can enrich our scripture study, but it can also create the illusion that we can safely ignore those passage that have been sullied by human mediators (that is, all of them).
The historical Jesus and the biblical Urtext have a counterpart in the early Christian church, the ‘Jesus movement.’ As historical study of the Urkirche has progressed, the early church has come to appear increasingly less church-like. This might be matter of concern, were it not for the realization that the academic investigation of church history and the Restoration project of Joseph Smith are two very different things that do not need to overlap perfectly. What the Restoration seeks to restore is the early Christian church as it was understood by a certain strain of Christianity in the early nineteenth century. Here again, historical inquiry can offer many insights. It can comment on and argue about original doctrines. But it cannot restore the divine authorization to conduct liturgical ritual or binding sacraments in God’s name. What Mormons often see as the most important aspect of church history is thus something that is barely comprehensible to academic inquiry. This isn’t a problem, unless one insists on asking misplaced questions and interpreting incomprehension as a negative response.
It’s not that I don’t value history as an academic discipline; to the contrary, I read their books, and sometimes I publish in their journals. I’d like to think that my academic experience informs the practice of my religion, in the same way that I hope Mormonism informs the ethics of my scholarship. But it is a mistake to hold up academic history as the standard against which church history or scripture must be judged, or to regard academic scholarship as the real history while Mormonism’s understanding of its history, its texts, and its savior is treated as defective or deceptive in comparison: not only is this a category error, but the academic disciplines cannot even provide what is being demanded of them. I’m happy to talk about history; but when I talk about Mormonism (on Mormon blogs, or when teaching Sunday School, for example), I talk about it from within Mormonism. So I’m little swayed by arguments that we must understand scripture like this because of textual criticism, or that we must understand Jesus as saying that because that is what a sage in Roman Palestine must have meant; the logical conclusion of that line of thought is to reject the divinity of Jesus and the reality of the resurrection. (I’m quite happy, however, to increase the number of the possible ways we can understand scripture by considering the contexts that various accounts of the historical Jesus suggest.)
It does no good to say, Well, I just believe in Jesus as he really existed. Our access to that existence is limited to the texts we accept, other statements we accept as authoritative, or experiences we accept as inspired. The presuppositions we bring to each of these affects how we understand our reading our interpret our expiences. We’re not helpless victims of our presuppositions, but neither can we read texts or interpret experiences without any presuppositions whatsoever. We can choose our texts, and we can choose our interpretive presupposition, but we can’t escape responsibility for the consequences of our choices.
Thank you for your post. Since reading “Zealot” I must admit I have been more critical of my understanding of Jesus. Certainly pursuit of the historical Jesus can be a source of truth but it doesn’t purport to answer the question regarding his divinity.
Someone please tell me how historicity issues with Mormon scripture are in any wise ameliorated by casting aspersions upon biblical textual criticism? Has the adoption of the irrational in defense of our vulnerable testaments now become a calling-extempore for LDS intellectuals (see Messianicity & Historicity below) because the effort seems coordinated and suddenly concerted (Bokovoy, Miller, Givens and now Green). This collective has taken us several steps closer to a sola fide version of scriptural inerrancy and that can only turn out badly.
Jonathan,
It seems to me that your post presupposes an audience that is aware of various historical and textual issues and their attending march of scholarship and is still in the believing camp. I think that is praiseworthy. But it seems to me that your audience is vanishingly small. I have been around a while and my experience has been that the vast majority–I will even say 99%–of LDS people I have encountered have no exposure to or interest in (let alone any degree of training in) any of the issues to which you allude and dismiss as inconsequential to your faith. The casual reader of the NT and the casual thinker on 1st/2nd cent. Christianity, that is to say pretty much every LDS person I have encountered, may read your post and all the more readily dismiss all challenges to their accepted readings/thoughts about the NT/early Christianity because you, as a something of a public authority, suggest that this is OK to do. For this reason I find your post irresponsible without further framing.
Your position on the NT and EC reflects a mature position staked out after years and perhaps decades of struggling with difficult issues. Almost all LDS people in my life are only babes (as much as I love them) in NT/EC matters, but you would have them pose as adults by taking up your position. You seem to coddle your fellow saints by asserting that none of the difficulties matter within a Mormon context while also preemptively guiding them away from them the tools by which they might engage and work with difficult issues. This seems to me to reinforce the insularity that so hampers LDS people in their attempts to dialogue with others about Christianity.
You may think me terribly arrogant for deeming most LDS people as mere babes in terms of NT/EC issues. Maybe I am. But this post strikes me as terribly arrogant for claiming knowledge of the issues on one hand and potentially absolving others of doing the work to gain that knowledge on the other hand. As I see it, we should be training as many of our fellow saints as possible to wrestle with issues and come to their own conclusions as guided by informed study and by the spirit. That may be what you are suggesting, but I fear that most will just find further justification to persist in their (lower case ‘a’) autistic reading/thinking of/on the NT/EC.
Whoa there, Jonathan! You seem to dismiss historical Jesus studies because, according to you, you wouldn’t share the assumption that he wasn’t divine and didn’t rise from the dead.
Since when were those prerequisites to wonderful historical Jesus research? I have been tremendously edified by writings by N.T. Wright, for example, who is perhaps the world’s best New Testament scholar–a giant in historical Jesus studies– and who strongly believes Jesus was divine and rose from the dead. You could name many other historical Jesus scholars who likewise believe in Jesus’ divinity and resurrection (you could also name atheists as well). Their research has given me profound insights into Jesus that have deepened my connection to Him. Have you read any of N.T. Wright’s academic work? If so, then surely you would know about his massive work “Resurrection Son of God V3: Christian Origins and the Question of God” where he persuasively argues that history is best explained by believing that the resurrection actually occurred. For an enlightening survey of the “third quest” for the historical Jesus, check out: “Jesus as a Figure in History: How Modern Historians View the Man from Galilee” by Mark Alan Powell.
In short, there is an **enormous** amount that we LDS could learn from biblical scholars of other faiths, many of whom believe as strongly–if not more–in the divinity and resurrection of Jesus than we do.
I try to avoid back-to-back comments, but reading your OP just makes me cringe and wonder how much you know about Biblical Studies, as opposed to, say, something like German Studies. Do you mind me gently asking what training or study you did in historical Biblical Studies before dismissing it? What is the basis for some of your startling statements? Let’s pick a part a few of them:
1. “if we take [the historical Jesus]…in contrast to the canonical Jesus, the person who emerges from the text of the New Testament.” Oops! The historical Jesus actually is largely based on the text of the New Testament. What other texts do you think historians are discussing instead? Josephus and Tacitus? Certainly those texts inform the picture, but I believe the “text of the New Testament” actually is the basis for much historical Jesus scholarship (at least the kind I’ve seen).
2. “I don’t accept the basic assumptions that that Jesus was not divine, and that he did not rise from the dead” Oops! Some of the best historical New Testament scholars, like N.T. Wright, don’t either!
3. “history is incapable of providing the Jesus I need, the atoning deity who rose from the dead.” Oops! Actually scholars like N.T. Wright argue for just this scenario, thus history actually is “capable” of such a view. See “Resurrection Son of God V3: Christian Origins and the Question of God.”
4. ” the logical conclusion of that line of thought is to reject the divinity of Jesus and the reality of the resurrection.” Maybe according to your understanding of logic. However, I am aware of many outstanding New Testament scholars who fully believe in “the divinity of Jesus and the reality of the resurrection.” Once again, see “Resurrection Son of God V3: Christian Origins and the Question of God.”
P, I would ask how you thought the post had anything to do with Mormon scriptural historicity, or how you got a promotion of sola fideism or scriptural inerrancy out of it, but your comment suggests you’re not reading carefully enough to make serious engagement worth the effort. Sorry.
Ahjeez, that’s some A-grade concern trolling. Well done! But 99% of Mormons fortunately have better things to do than read Mormon blogs. Among those of us who do read them, on the other hand, there’s a certain amount of anxiety evident about historical concerns, and some level of familiarity with the issues, and I see no alternative to writing for an audience who will take the time to understand the issues rather than willfully misunderstanding everything they read. The alternative is silence. As for your concerns about knowledge of biblical and early Christian scholarship: the stakes are a lot lower than you think.
PP, my CV is online, and you should be able to get access to most of my publications through Google books or the full-text databases your university subscribes to. Make of them what you will. Based on the address you gave, I’ll assume you’re an undergraduate (not that there’s anything wrong with that!), but please do correct me if that’s mistaken. I don’t expect that my own thought process is the only way to resolve belief and scholarship, and I appreciate your mention of believing historians (but please try not to be a jerk about it, OK?). I don’t mean to be dismissive of their work, or even of the work of disbelieving historians – it is, as I mentioned, full of useful insights. You’re probably familiar enough with NT studies to figure out the kind of work I have in mind in my post. The contrast between the historical and canonical Jesus isn’t original, for example; I’m borrowing it from Marcus Borg.
But step back a bit and look at the problem as a historian would. Suppose you have an account of someone dying and returning to life after three days (and, actually, the NT isn’t unique in that respect; there are numerous medieval and early modern accounts of people returning from the dead and relating their visions). Suppose again that the nearest manuscript witness postdates the event by 70, 100, or 200 years. And assume that people a century later honored the returnee as the atoning Son of God.
Option 1: This account may be wholly fabricated years or decades after the fact, but if it has a kernel of historical truth, then most likely in the form of grievous illness or injury leading to someone spending days in a comatose state and being taken for dead before regaining consciousness. Such things are known from recent history.
Option 2: The Son of God literally died – his spirit separated from his body, dwelled in the spirit world, and returned in some form to a now immortal existence, and by doing so solved the pressing human problems of sin and death.
Now, the important thing to recognize is that while the Jesus that Mormonism sets forth (and the one that I accept) is the second one, the discipline of history is never – never – going to get you to Option 2. There are far more likely ways to interpret such late textual witnesses, or to reconstruct the original events, that it would take an overwhelming degree of special pleading to end up with Option 2. This doesn’t make history wrong or useless, but it keeps me from making history the standard against which I judge my belief.
Hardly. As PP rightly points out, there are all sorts of respected New Testament scholars who either accept the divinity and literal resurrection of Jesus or bracket those issues. You also need to define what you mean by textual criticism, for it appears to have been a longstanding practice that arguably occurred well before modernity. Scribes and translators of all sorts of writings (both holy and non-holy writ) have long tried to edit and correct written works that they believe to be misprints or mistranslations. Furthermore, wasn’t Joseph Smith’s translation of the Bible a form of textual criticism? I think what you mean to say is that you don’t like interpretations of the Bible that dismiss the idea that Jesus is actually divine or actually resurrected. Duly noted. But if we don’t engage the Bible through textual criticism, how else are we to engage it other than uncritically? As p hints at in comment 2, this sort of thinking seems to be opening the doors to either believing that the Biblical text itself is inerrant or that the words of someone or some group whom we accept as authoritative about the Bible are inerrant.
#6 “But it is a mistake to hold up academic history as the standard against which church history or scripture must be judged, or to regard academic scholarship as the real history while Mormonism’s understanding of its history, its texts, and its savior is treated as defective or deceptive in comparison: not only is this a category error, but the academic disciplines cannot even provide what is being demanded of them.”
Operative phrase: “…while Mormonism’s understanding of its history, its texts, and its savior is treated as defective or deceptive in comparison”
Baseline Christian historicity is indispensable and is the PRIMARY reason Christianity has survived for 2000 years. That we don’t (yet?) possess this in our Church is not a good reason to de-emphasize or second-place its importance in the mother tradition.
PP wasn’t questioning the originality of the contrast, but its validity. And he/she was quite right (and in fact beat me to the punch, for I was about to make the same critique). Is there really any other Jesus other than the historical Jesus, or can Jesus just be whomever we want to think him to be? There are different opinions about whether or not the Bible miracles are true, sure. There are also multiple traditions about Jesus. But if Jesus really resurrected, then that is a historical fact.
Jonathan, I’ve been following and commenting on T&S for many years, and in fact have had been on the opposite side of discussions with you in the past, and I honestly do not know who you are other than a blogger on T&S. Unfortunately Jonathan Green is a common name, and googling has not done me much good. Perhaps a link would help.
Jonathan – Nope, not an undergrad (actually, I have a doctorate too :). But rather than changing the subject to my credentials, why not just answer a few of my questions?
Since you are dismissive of historical Biblical Studies, may I ask what training you’ve actually had in it? The “Jonathan Green” on the internet who I believe is you is a Visiting Assistant Professor of German Studies at the University of North Dakota. Assuming that’s you, I deduce you don’t have a PhD in Biblical Studies (more likely in German, no?). Perhaps you’ve taken a few courses in Biblical Studies, then (which is much more than most people–vastly more than most church members–but not enough to give you any credibility in dismissing the entire field as being filled with unbelievers).
You can borrow from Marcus Borg all you like, though he was on the liberal, skeptical end of the faith spectrum. It’s totally inappropriate, however, to hold up his views as representative of historical biblical studies, decrying that such studies can’t be done while holding faith. I’ve pointed out N.T. Wright as a very devout believer in Jesus (divinity, resurrection, and all) as well as a pre-eminent New Testament scholar and leader in historical Biblical studies (not to mention an Anglican Bishop). Wouldn’t you agree he provides an obvious counter-example to all your arguments about why historical biblical research is incompatible with faith?
Finally, I apologize if you felt I personally attacked you. Such personal attacks have no place in academic or apologetic discussion. I wish to politely point out that I wholeheartedly disagree with several fundamental premises of your post today, as discussed above.
I enjoyed your post, Jonathan, because I identify with many of its sentiments. I’m enjoying the comments because I also identify with some of their sentiments. On the one hand, your post praises textual criticism for the insights it can offer believers. On the other hand, you warn about some of the problematic assumptions and conclusions that textual criticism promotes. So your post focuses on a crucial tension any religious scholar of religion must wrestle with. Forgive my long comment. I’m using this as an opportunity to get a few ideas down in writing and I’d love to read your response.
I think some of the critical feedback you’re getting is the result of your rhetorical positioning. As others have pointed out, not all textual critics buy into the methodological presuppositions that deny the reality of Christ’s resurrection. What’s more, for most Mormons, the threat of academic idolatry isn’t particularly looming. Mormons would first need to realize there’s even a thing that might be idolized to begin, so they’d need to look beyond Deseret Book and official manuals. Over the past few years I’ve realized just how much I don’t know. So in spite of your (laudable and welcome!) caveats that scholarship can aid religious faith and understanding, it seems your post is most likely to discourage Latter-day Saints in general from spending much time with scholarship on the Bible, Jesus, the early Church, etc.
Of course, you’re likely speaking more to your academic types who seem to pledge allegiance primarily to academic perspectives on religious issues, when at heart, some of the biggest points of belief can’t be pinned down through research. How many Mormons really read these blogs? Not many.
So I easily agree with you when you say “history is incapable of providing the Jesus I need, the atoning deity who rose from the dead.”
I even meet you a little more than halfway when you add “At best, the historical Jesus can provide useful and even profound insights with devotional relevance; at worst, the historical Jesus can be a distraction, a false promise of knowing Jesus without the mediation of scriptural text or ecclesiastic structure, or an idol that alienates devotion from the true object of worship.”
One reason I don’t meet you all the way here is because I think you’re unfairly singling out the shortcomings of biblical scholarship while ignoring some of the obstacles placed along any avenue to Jesus Christ. We can make a false idol of our own personal Jesus whether we come to Him through academic scholarship, through ecclesiastical prescription, personal experiential revelation, or any other way you can name. Consider the idol as metaphor The Christ idol is the Christ frozen in stone. The Christ we think we’ve got forever pinned down. The Christ we can’t possibly be surprised by. The Christ that matches most of the things we’ve already come to conclude on any number of issues.
So when you point out that academic history can’t be the standard against which “church history or scripture must be judged” you present a false dilemma. The assumption here is that one or the other must rule, and since it can’t be academic scholarship we must rely instead on the official position of the church, or on our own personal conclusions based on revelation, etc. But our own conclusions and the teachings of the church have already borrowed from academic scholarship (albeit the heavily outdated kind) so our perspectives, as you seem to note, are already in a sense contaminated.
If you have particular problems with particular claims made by particular Mormons regarding the relationship of historical or textual studies and our faith then it is better to discuss them in particularity.
ALL THIS IS TO SAY that I personally think you’d be better off pointing out constructive ways Mormons can engage with scholarship rather than warning of its shortcomings. For instance, you could simply invert the rhetorical thrust of the post. Instead of including brief caveats that historical research can actually be useful, you might include brief caveats that there is more to the Christian story than academic inquiry can discover and that revelation and truth made manifest through concrete experience is indispensable. But I think we Latter-day Saints too often risk missing out on what scholarship and other faith traditions have to offer us in addition to what we have to offer them. I love it when faithful scholars focus on the good that academic inquiry can bring to our understanding of our faith, emphasize the humility it can engender, the new insights on offer, as they also include necessary warnings that our constructs can become idolatrous, whether they’re constructed from academic literature, statements from latter-day prophets, or personal spiritual experiences.
Well done, sir. You kicked over a hornets’ nest that needed to be kicked. Witness the buzzing.
I think some are mistaking the concept of historical here. Yes, we get much of the historical Jesus from the text. But history is something that must be able to be verified, or at least something believable by a scientist. We can believe Jesus taught on the Sermon on the Mount as historical. However, how do you prove his miracles, walking on water, or resurrection. Yes, NT Wright and others (including me) believe these things occurred, but they do not fit into history. You may as well attempt to say that the Greek Gods were involved in the Trojan War – while the Trojan War was historical, proving the gods were involved is something that cannot be shown in a scientific/history form. It lies outside of history.
Pretty measured and sane, JG, though the devil is probably in the details.
Rameumpton,
No, no, no! There isn’t confusion about what “historical” means, thank you very much (or at least not in my camp). N.T. Wright is one of the world’s leading New Testament scholars. Period. He considers himself a historian, and is accepted by other scholars as using historical methodology to make historical arguments. He is a prominent figure in historical Jesus studies. Very broadly, I think it is fair to say that he argues that the best explanation for the history of Christianity is that Jesus is what He claimed to be, that the resurrection occurred, etc. He has written 3,700+ pages detailing his arguments in his monumental, 5 volume “Christian Origins and the Question of God,” in which he devotes hundreds of pages to discussing methodological issues. Not everyone agrees with him, of course, but then again not everybody agrees with Crossan, Borg, or any other historian.
Interestingly enough, Wright actually addresses your belief that history must be “something believable by a scientist.” This is a post-Enlightenment viewpoint that did not chain earlier generations of historians (after all, weren’t there historians before the enlightenment?) I can’t do justice in a blog comment to 3,700 pages of Wright’s analysis or methodology, but he addresses the historicity of the resurrection in his 740 page “The Resurrection of the Son of God” and argues that its occurrence is the best explanation for the history of early Christianity.
Historical means that something really happened in the past. That’s just the way the term is used in English. The LDS church leaders claim that the resurrection was historical and really happened. Heck, even the OP talks of the “reality of the resurrection” implying the event’s historicity. Something isn’t necessarily historical just because it is believable by a scientist. Scientists have been known to err. Some even hold crazy ideas. Former BYU physicist Steve Jones argued that 9/11 was an inside job. A lot of history is just guesswork, too. Historians routinely draw on the present to make approximations about how the past may have appeared, but no one has a crystal ball and can give us a 100% verifiable history. There are always gaps to be filled in with the imagination. Sometimes that’s all you can do.
Well said, Steve.
“believable by a scientist.”
Lots of scientists believe in Christ and his resurrection. They aren’t all atheists. According to a Pew poll of scientists who belonged to one association, ? were theists. As that link notes right around 30% – 40% of scientists usually subscribe to a belief in a personal God, whatever their ability to prove it publicly. (Interestingly belief in a personal God is more common among young scientists rather than old – a generational gap?)
Steve Smith, neither “textual criticism” nor “historical Jesus” mean what you think they mean. A lot of words don’t mean what you think they mean.
Blair, my audience is the self-selecting group of people who choose to reads blogs like this. To judge by the posts and comments that can be read on those blogs, the attitudes I’m arguing against are not uncommon. Your concern about the harm to the general church membership’s likelihood of engaging with biblical scholarship is surely misplaced. But the biggest problem with your comment, I think, is your assumption that all paths to Jesus are alike in being obstructed; what I’m saying is that there is no path towards any recognizable version of Jesus through history as an academic discipline. Equating the church and history as merely two imperfect paths to Christ confounds the entirely different categories in which each resides. History won’t save you; it isn’t even interested in saving you. The church is willing to try. You and PP are quite agitated about N. T. Wright, but I’ve never doubted in the least that there are believing historians, or that people of faith can be exemplary historians, and I’m still not sure what their existence is supposed to show. People with prior commitments to Christian belief will often find correspondences between their beliefs and academic research; I have experiences like that myself. But without that prior commitment, no historical analysis is going to conclude that Jesus was divine. It’s not the personnel that I’m concerned with; it’s the process.
PP: For an acronym, you’re rather demanding that I lay out my qualifications. It’s actually quite rude to toss out my personal information in your comment, as if figuring out who I am (hint: see the author bios) proves something. So instead of hammering on who I am, put yourself on the line: write what you believe, sign your name to it, and see who salutes. Also, stop pointing at N. T. Wright’s 3700 pages of writing, and start summarizing it for us. What are his key points that you think disarm my argument? How can one simply do history and find Jesus? I think it’s impossible – so prove me wrong.
I only inquired about your undergraduate-ness (and I apologize for the mistake) to get a sense of how familiar you were with an academic discipline. I pretend to no expertise in the field of biblical studies. I’ve spent enough time in my own discipline, however, and some of the methods and problems that it shares with biblical studies, to start sensing where the limits of historical or textual inquiry are. I quite agree with N. T. Wright’s position, as you describe it, that the best explanation for the NT was that Jesus is who he said he is: but I’m not arriving at that conclusion through simple historical inquiry.
Drawing a parallel between the “historical Jesus” and the flesh and blood contemporary Jesus yields,
“Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee but my father which is in heaven.”
If walking with the contemporary Jesus (by itself) could not “reveal” the Jesus we worship to Peter, how could studying the scant historical record or parsing the words descended from those who walked with him? Or reading multiple tomes from even believing historians?
Thanks for the great perspective on the uses and ultimate limits on historical inquiry to reveal Jesus.
OK how about you explain better what those terms mean rather than assume that the audience knows what you mean (instead of trying to play rank and calling them undergraduates). So far it seems that a number of the commenters are confused. The OP just isn’t well-worded.
Joel,
I agree with you that the Spirit ultimately provides a testimony of Christ’s divinity, but the ways of the Spirit and of the Lord can be quite mysterious. There is a very prominent LDS apologist/historian who, after renouncing the LDS faith and turning to atheism, became a believing Christian again in part through reading academic works like those I’ve referenced above. I also know that some academic works have provided me with spiritual experiences, confirming the divinity of Jesus Christ, every bit as powerful as anything I’ve experienced elsewhere. Intelligence is the glory of God; His fingerprints are often found in works of first-rate scholarship, and whether scholars recognize it or not, His Spirit often provides the sparks of insight that lead to discovery and “academic” advance.
This is not to say that indiscriminate academic reading will lead you to Christ; I personally try to be very selective in whose academic works I read (about Christ), consciously choosing scholars whose works will affirm my faith rather than undermine it. I’ve offered up the name of one scholar (NT Wright) in my prior comments as someone who I think LDS folks would really like (a bit like C.S. Lewis), so they don’t have to wade through works by faith-destroying scholars to learn about the historical context of Christ’s ministry and the rise of the Christian faith.
Keep trying to tell y’all, this is not about “textual criticism” or “historical Jesus” per se. IF we (Mormons) can second-place/diminish the historicity of Jesus we’re suddenly much better positioned re: our own history-less scripture. This SEEMS to be part of a larger effort involving a number of LDS scholars who, of late, have written bizarre and unaccountable things, esp. in the context of a church which, until recently, was simply all ABOUT history.
Apologies, Jonathan, if I’m misreading/mis-representing. My suspicions are obviously contemptible and I am busy repenting. It is certainly possible I’m having a Mormon Paranoid Breakdown because I’m also wondering, actually wondering, if you and others (#2) are the “so-called intellectuals” Elder Packer warned us about.
Jonathan, there is simply no information about you to be found on the T&S blog. If I click on authors and then click on your name, it leads me only to your posts, not your bio. Was there an author bios section in the past sometime? If so, it doesn’t appear to be there anymore. Perhaps this is something that needs to be corrected. If there is info about you on this website, then it must be hard to find and needs to be made easier.
First a snippet of my cv. Bi-weekly, I attend a bible study hosted by my directly-across-the-street neighbor and attended by six to eight of his Christian male friends. I am a Utah-raised (implanted at five) army brat, TBM, USU liberal arts major with minors in philosophy, Japanese, and Chinese; now 23-year Californian, former business analyst, and six-year practitioner of the law with a J.D. from a local law school.
I hope that comes across as funny.
PP: Thank you for your conciliatory tone with me. The absence of that tone with Jonathan leads me to believe you two have crossed swords before.
The great stumbling block for all of us mental patients, i.e., they who have “need of the physician” whose problem with the cure is mental, is that the cure actually requires—at least at first, or at least once—blind submission to an invisible, supreme authority. All must ask and act in faith, a notion diametrically opposed to empirical method; indeed empirical method itself assumes that anyone acting on faith has predetermined the outcome, and is deluded. They are at their roots incompatible logical and methodological theses.
So, Jonathan’s points are well-taken by me. Your point that seems to say there is more than one path to Christ is also well-taken. I am fortunate that Mormon doctrine allows for the path to Christ to continue into the next life for the well-lived, because I am forced to agree with the assertion of many of my Christian neighbors’ pastors that we do not currently believe in the same Christ—at least in the particulars. My espoused doctrine allows for their salvation, their does not allow for mine. I have felt the power of their witnesses of Christ in their lives. I believe them. I believe they have felt the power of mine while using only the bible to witness of His power in my own life.
Either way, theirs or mine, still requires that anyone who answers to the question of Christ, “Whom do ye say that I am?” without pretense, by saying, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,” can only do so by having it revealed to them after an act of faith. The witness of a believer who is also a mental patient, even at 3700 pages, may be just the trick to get another mental patient to shut up, yield, put his brain on the shelf, and listen long enough to hear the voice that speaks to the heart or spirit.
I take Jonathan’s comments in this favorable light. Too many hope to have their answers in the history and I aver that is not possible, and further aver that Christ has said it is not possible, and that it more often than not erodes faith rather than bolsters it. Indeed, it is far more often used as a weapon by the empiricist to hack away at faith.
Jonathan, based on your response to me I think I failed to clearly state my ideas.
“Your concern about the harm to the general church membership’s likelihood of engaging with biblical scholarship is surely misplaced.”
I’m not sure what you understand my concern to be. My comment was long, so maybe you were responding in piecemeal fashion, not taking into account the part where I said “How many Mormons really read these blogs? Not many.” I was trying to acknowledge the fact that your audience wasn’t general church membership. I also expressed agreement with you (so I thought) by saying “you’re likely speaking more to your academic types who seem to pledge allegiance primarily to academic perspectives on religious issues, when at heart, some of the biggest points of belief can’t be pinned down through research.” I concluded by suggesting we might focus our attention on modeling fruitful ways of faithfully engaging academic scholarship.
“But the biggest problem with your comment, I think, is your assumption that all paths to Jesus are alike in being obstructed; what I’m saying is that there is no path towards any recognizable version of Jesus through history as an academic discipline.”
I don’t want to be misunderstood on this crucial point. It all depends on how you’re interpreting the idea that all paths are “alike” in being obstructed. I’m not suggesting all roads are equally untrustworthy or equally trustworthy. I think each path is “alike” in that each is filtered through preconceptions, grounding assumptions, human cognition, imperfect records, memory, etc.. I’m just trying to reckon along with Paul that we see through a glass darkly. A sort of perspectivism without extreme relativism. Epistemic humility. I’m not “Equating the church and history as merely two imperfect paths to Christ,” as you describe it. I even like your pithy line that “History won’t save you; it isn’t even interested in saving you. The church is willing to try.” The difficulty here is that the church, too, exists in history and carries on through history. I am basically expressing the same thing you did in the post when you said “…our understanding of Jesus is informed by the texts we read and the institutions in which we participate.”
“You and PP are quite agitated about N. T. Wright, but I’ve never doubted in the least that there are believing historians, or that people of faith can be exemplary historians, and I’m still not sure what their existence is supposed to show.”
The references to Wright are responses to your objection to the “foundational postulates of how the historical Jesus is constructed,” including “the basic assumptions that that Jesus was not divine, and that he did not rise from the dead.” You aren’t alone in rejecting those things. Is it possible you simply spoke a bit too broadly here? (BTW I’m not feeling “quite agitated” despite sensing a bit of tension in the comments.)
“But without that prior commitment, no historical analysis is going to conclude that Jesus was divine. It’s not the personnel that I’m concerned with; it’s the process.”
It seems like you’re trying to rebut my remarks here, but I don’t recognize my position in your rebuttal. N.T. Wright and his sort of methodology was peripheral in my own response. You may be conflating me with other people in the discussion.
Anyway, I get the sense this isn’t really a “common ground seeking” exercise, so having said my peace (piece?) I’m gonna cut and run.
Jonathan – I apologize for the rude tone in some of my prior remarks. They are poor examples of charity or Christian virtue. If I had the ability or know-how to edit my prior remarks to remove the offending tone, I surely would. I would welcome you or any other editor of T&S to do so on my behalf. A weakness of mine is that I often let loose when feeling strong emotion, and it has hurt me on many occasions (even professionally). To anyone listening, learn early in life to hold your tongue!
Joel – I appreciate your points. Faith will always be essential. A passage in the New Testament that I love is the one of the unclean woman who touches Christ’s clothing to be healed. She had to have faith to do that, but she also had to put forth effort to draw near to Him, to be in His vicinity. Likewise, I think we receive spiritual guidance when we make an effort to be in the vicinity of Christ. For me, the works of writers/historians like Wright have helped with that. Obviously it’s not the only way; people should find what works for them.
“Passions are like the winds that swell the sails of a ship. It is true that sometimes they may sink her, but without them we could not sail at all.” Voltaire.
History is written by those who have hanged heroes.
“Yeah, well, you know, that’s just, like, your opinion, man.” The Dude
Steve, for this post, the Wikipedia definition of textual criticism will work well enough. For ‘historical Jesus,’ as you see from the discussion so far, the definition is more contested. I’m intending something like ‘the figure of Jesus as perceptible to the academic discipline of history, whose Enlightenment foundations preclude attributing divine or other supernatural qualities to him,’ but some dissatisfaction has been expressed over whether this definition is accurate. As for the author bios, I have no idea. They must have gotten zapped in some WordPress upgrade who knows how many years ago.
P, thanks for the clarification. I’m actually rather attached to historicity, to the idea that wondrous events happened in the real world, even as I recognize that turning events into texts, or reconstructing events from those texts, are complex and sometimes highly imprecise processes. Historicity is not really an issue I’m arguing about yet, except to note the gap between what happened and what can be reconstructed.
Blair, don’t give up so soon. From your response, it seems we agree on some things. Online exchanges almost never result in compromise, but they sometimes help people distill the essential points of their positions in useful ways.
Joel and PP (and others), thanks for your comments. No, I don’t think PP and I have argued before, but I appreciate his pushing back against me. For a serious post that is the product of a lot of thought, I hope to get some serious, full-contact argument. The Internet being the Internet, I’m unlikely to give much ground, but it will certainly help me refine what I think and write the next time I come back to the topic.
Jonathan, I like your thoughts, even though I believe many of the commenters do raise good criticisms.
To me, the two primary purposes of scripture are to learn new things and to find strength to live our lives.
Sometimes I think taking secular history into account can help that. It’s useful, for example, to know about the first-century Roman Empire and Judaism when reading the New Testament, and learning about both can help make parts of the New Testament a lot clearer. However, if we focus too much on that, it can lead us to make suppositions that prevent us from learning something new. For example, the dating of many of the Gospels is based on the scholarly assumption that events described in them, such as Jesus’s predictions of the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple and of Christian persecution, had already happened when they were written. This is a useful thing to be aware of, but if you’re trying to learn about how God’s shared foreknowledge should influence your life, it can be a drawback if you start with the assumption that there is no such thing as prophecy.
I recently finished Isaiah, and what you can get out of the text is completely different depending on whether you believe it was composed in the 700s BCE, or whether it was written after the Jews’ return under Cyrus (composed, not compiled—that raises a whole extra dimension of complexity). A strictly historical view only supports the latter date. I feel a lot can be gained from that approach, but for Isaiah particularly even more can be lost, especially if you’re coming to the scriptures to learn something you don’t already think you know. But there’s a balance—if you don’t know at least a little about the Assyrian and Babylonian empires, it can be hard to understand anything to begin with, and learning more serves to enrich the text.
Beyond that, having studied history in college, I can say professional history changes a lot more frequently than most casual readers are aware; it’s not uncommon for a new generation of scholars to disagree with half the conclusions the preceding generations have made. Revisionism is the rule and goal, not the exception. A recent example is how the discovery of L’Anse aux Meadows in 1960 by the Ingstads completely changed what historians believed about Viking settlements North America; before that the consensus was that Vikings had come to the New England area, much further to the south.
Across the world, before the discovery of oracle bones in China most Western historians doubted that the Shang dynasty was a historical reality; because of them, today it’s accepted by everyone.
One of the pitfalls of modern science can be assuming we have reached the pinnacle of discovery of the world around us. I think you’re right that the historical Jesus and the historical Scriptures should just be one piece of our constructed religious worldview, alongside many other important components both learned and experienced.
I also have a higher view of our lay membership than some of the commenters. I don’t think I would ever refer to them as “babes” in anything, even if their experiences differ greatly from my own.