The question of whether by historically contextualizing the Gospel story we make Jesus largely irrelevant to the church and the world today has been a recurrent one - indeed, for me something of a thorn in the flesh. It was recently posed rather articulately and forcefully by samlcarr and shiert on the ‘New creation and the kingdom of God’ thread. I realize that I appear to belabour the point far too much, and the impression is easily given that I think that Jesus is of no more than antiquarian interest to us today. That is not the case, and I will try again to explain, too briefly, what I’m getting at and why, because I think we have a lot more to gain than lose by learning to trust the narrative shape of our theology.
1. Historical narratives can have a powerful shaping influence without being transposed into universal, existential or mythical categories. I still think the significance of the exodus narrative for Old Testament Jewish identity is a good precedent. At some level it came to function as a metaphor for Israel’s perpetually felt calling and sense of redemption, so that Jews of every generation could see themselves as members of the exodus community. Rob Bell makes this point in Velvet Elvis:
…in a Jewish synagogue to this day, you will probably hear kids taught the story of exodus as their story. A friend of mine recently heard a Jewish kid say, "We were slaves in Egypt and Moses led us out, and we complained in the wilderness." (59)
But this makes sense only because the exodus was understood first as a historical event by which a people was brought from slavery to freedom. Whatever we may subsequently make of Jesus’ death, it is historically a saving event because it ensured the survival of a people that would otherwise have been consigned the dustbin of history. We should certainly not be indifferent to that fact. In the Lord’s Supper we repeatedy tell the story of Jesus just as Israel repeatedly told the story of the exodus in the Passover meal.
2. One thing of crucial importance that I think is gained by the historical reading is a sense of the priority in God’s purposes of the people which he called in Abraham to be his new creation and to be a blessing to the world. Perhaps this is overstating the point, I don’t think we will properly understand the missional task of the ‘church’ until we grasp the significance of the concrete historical and narrative existence of this people. Jesus did not start a new religion; he rescued a people that had badly lost its bearings and got them on the right track again.
3. Shiert argues that ‘we cannot ignore that which is "deep and universal", for to do so would fail to respect and do justice to the Jesus that is the Divine Christ’. My response would be that it is fully in keeping with the biblical witness that we find both what is ‘deep and universal’ and the divinity of the Christ in the narrative-historical structures of scripture. To be ‘new creation’ is not a pious abstraction; it has to do with the ongoing existence of a community endeavouring to live righteously in a difficult, threatening, and changing world. That is what we mean by ‘incarnation’. The alternative, frankly, is Gnosticism: the myth of a redeemer who descends into the created world to rescue the illuminati from its corruption.
This is not to say that we can only construct our ‘truth’ narratively. We are a creative people, and we must always learn to speak about our existence in the world philosophically, sociologically, artistically, mystically, and so on. But insofar as we regard ourselves as a biblical people (I think that this is a crucial choice that the church as it emerges from Christendom has to make), surely it is incumbent upon us at some basic level to think biblically. We don’t have to understand that in foundational terms: it can be a matter of process, critical examination, dialogue; it can be a matter of simple uninterpreted story-telling or the liturgical reading of scripture. But it is all too easy, otherwise, to develop a belief system that is at odds with the biblical witness.
4. If for no other reason I would defend the historical reading on the grounds that it makes better sense of the New Testament than the traditional evangelical hermeneutic, which must somehow cut everything to fit the procustean bed of a myth of personal salvation. The parable of the two builders and the storm is a good example. It makes for much better exegesis to read this in both its historical and its literary context as a judgment-warning to first century Israel in the language of Old Testament prophecy than as piece of decontextualized universal wisdom. Of course, no one is going to stop us using the parable today in order to illustrate everyman’s spiritual dilemma, but what invariably happens in the mind of the church is that the contemporary personal application takes over and becomes the filter through which scripture is read. I think that if we are serious about being a biblical people, something needs to be done about that.
5. I’m not sure that the early church drifted away from the narrative framework of the Jesus story quite as quickly as Sam seems to suggest. The Jesus story at least includes the foreseen destruction of Jerusalem: it is not just about his life, death and resurrection; he has a great deal to say about a future chain of events culminating in judgment on his opponents and the vindication of his followers. I would also argue that the early church quite properly extended the Jesus story (as the story of the Son of man) to include within its narrative scope the victory of the suffering community over Rome. Paul’s persistent focus on the parousia is to my mind evidence that he is thinking historically and realistically about the condition and fate of the communities for which he is responsible. A large part of Romans (in fact, I would argue the whole of Romans) has to do with the historical dilemma faced by Israel under judgment. Paul has moved on from the Gospel story but he has not lost sight of the trajectory of the Christ and its implications for the immediate concrete existence of the churches.
Paul makes extensive use of the Old Testament in his teaching, and I think we have to assume that not only his Jewish but also his Gentile readership would have been well acquainted with the scriptural narratives. There is certainly a strong case for thinking that many of the early Gentile converts would have come from the ranks of the God-fearers. In any case, they were taught from the scriptures (2 Tim. 3:16). What I see in the New Testament is a community very consciously and urgently struggling to understand its place in history and its prospects for the future in the light of the Old Testament texts.
6. If we are genuinely at a point in history when we must construct a new paradigm for what it means to be church, then I think we have to go all the way back in our imaginations to the core historical narratives and, as best we can, learn to tell the story again. I think that this is the best safeguard we have against defaulting to the deeply ingrained structures of evangelical tradition. I also think that it is the best way not to fall into the ‘liberal’ trap of subjectively picking out the bits of doctrine that we like and throwing the rest away.
Let the story stand for what it is, apart from our pressing need to appropriate it for ourselves. Once we have done that, we can start working forwards again and ask what it means to live now in the light of that story. My fear, however, is that we won’t go back far enough to find the road that will lead us through the ‘eschatological crisis’ of the end of the age of Christendom into a new age and a new paradigm. The old Christendom-modern paradigm is pervasive and extremely powerful, and it very quickly reassimilates our attempts to reimagine the biblical narrative. It needs to be resisted.
Re: Why the historical Jesus matters
For me, the choice is not between a historically contextualised reading of the gospel story and an abstract/evangelical/modernist reading, but between which historically contextualised version we are going for. In any reading of the gospels, the story of the cross is always just as historical for Christian believers as the Exodus was for Jews. It is told repeatedly whenever bread and wine, in whatever tradition, are taken. It is told even better when the historical context of the last supper informs the act, pointing to the new Exodus; the new Passover lamb; the new covenant - Israel’s story brought to a climax in the person of Jesus, and that in his death on the cross.
The creational purpose of the gospel story is just as real in alternative tellings of the story to the one Andrew proposes. It is more real, in fact, since the new creation is located in the resurrection of Jesus himself, and in believers in relationship with him - emphases which are not given in Andrew’s version.
Gnosticism is rather more of a danger in Andrew’s version of the gospel story than in the traditional, orthodox or evangelical version. In the latter, the events of Jesus’s life and death are the anchor for the on-going life of the believer. In the former, they are restricted to the lives of those in the immediate historical context, beyond which the on-going ‘creational’ mandate for believers rests on an agenda which is as hidden as gnosticism. There is no on-going biblical frame of reference in the NT against which the agenda can be measured. This latter reading is also regressive - shedding the more detailed fulfilment of the NT as normative for believers, and reverting to the far cloudier words given to Abraham 2000 years previously, despite the fact that Paul repeatedly asserts that the those words and promises were fulfilled in Christ, and, by relationship with him, in his church.
How are we meant to think biblically, when most of the biblical material, the NT and gospels in particular, is said to be of somewhat exclusive reference to the 1st century?
Andrew’s version of a historical contextualisation goes further than saying that it "has a great deal to say about a future chain of events culminating in judgment on his opponents and the vindication of his followers". It asserts that an event, the parousia, fulfilling the Daniel 7:13 narrative, took place separately from the life/death/ressurection/ascension/outpoured Spirit of Jesus, which becomes the primary assurance for the church of its on-going survival and success in the face of conflict and suffering then, and in relation to political powers now. Such is the emphasis given to this event, that it displaces the preceding events from any direct relevance to the lives of believing people beyond the 1st century. This is an incredibly novel development, and marginalises what for most people is taken to be central to their faith.
Further, I would argue that the central theme of Paul’s letter to the Romans (thereby asserting a solution to an issue which has perplexed theologians through the ages, but I’m only following Andrew’s example!) is not "the historical dilemma faced by Israel under judgment", but the covenant faithfulness of God to his creation - which included the dilemma of (unbelieving) Israel, and went beyond to a context of fallen creation stretching back to Adam. This is Paul’s interpretation of the OT, and the consistent position of the NT, which is not any different from Paul.
Andrew’s conclusions therefore, that we have to construct a new paradigm for the church and find a core narrative that is different from that found in all Christian traditions, is misguided. A more constructive task would be to discern how modernism has affected a reading of the core narratives in their application for believers today, and to extract from this the traditional readings and the biblical readings. And here, it is Andrew’s reading that does not go back far enough - beyond the story as constructed around Israel, to the story as provided in those early chapters of Genesis, resting on the great creation account of Genesis 1 & 2, and the falling away in Genesis 3. On these accounts, the whole troubled story of the patriarchs, judges and kings rests, finding its resolution in a messiah king and suffering servant, in whom the whole of Israel’s story and creation’s story had its fulfilment, and in whom the church has direct access to the heart of the new creation realities which it is the mandate of God’s people to bring into the world today.
Re: Why the historical Jesus matters
Andrew,
As always, a great post. But I’d like to press you on some issues.
So, you’ve told us why the historical Jesus matters, but I’m not clear what you mean by "historical Jesus." Could you tell me a bit more about what you mean by "historical Jesus"?
What is "the biblical witness"? A lot seems to hinge on getting this right. Can you tell me more about what you mean?
On one hand, I agree that we should avoid the "traditional evangelical hermenuetic." And to avoid this, I agree also that placing scripture in literary and historical context is important for constructing an understanding of the meaning of some piece of text. However, on the other hand, I think that the present context in which we read the scripture and interpret it for ourselves is far more important to understanding how we can and should follow in the way of Jesus. In other words, I’m saying that literary and historical contexts are seen and understood only from our present vantage. We are always already here in the present context looking back and renarrating forward. So, therefore, understanding thehistorical and literary contexts are in some sense secondary to understanding the present conditions under which we make particular literary and historical interpretations. To be clear here, I’m not talking about decontextualizing scripture, I’m talking about pushing the contextual logic to its conclusion. While I feel that your contextualization of scripture is historically rich, it is only a halting step toward embedding the scripture in the contexts in which its actually being articulated and lived by followers—that is, the present context.
My point that the present context is missing from your analysis really pops out when I read #6. You represent the re-telling of scripture as something that we decide and learn to do and as something we can start and stop—you seem to presume that the re-relling is not always already in process. In saying this, however, you miss the mundane and overwhelming force of the present. As long as we are reading the Scriptures, we are always already re-telling scripture in artful ways.
The problem, as I see it, centers on your affirmation of the metaphysical claims that there are "deep and universal" elements of the Divine Christ and metaphysical claims that the Biblical "story" can "stand for what it is…apart from our pressing need to appropriate it for ourselves." I think that you risk succoming to the "pervasive and extremely powerful" modern paradigm that you’re tryiing to avoid.
Re: Why the historical Jesus matters
What do I mean by the ‘historical Jesus’? Well, I don’t primarily mean the Jesus whose existence and life can be described and validated by historical-critical method, for example. What I am getting at is a way of thinking about the Jesus of the Gospels that finds his significance both for biblical interpretation and perhaps also for faith in the framework of a complex backward-looking and forward-looking narrative that describes the concrete historical experience of a community. In a sense this is more a literary consideration than a historical one: What sort of story is being told? But I think it has implications for the question of historical plausibility.
This ‘historical Jesus’ is differentiated from the Jesus of much evangelical piety, for example, whose meaning may be contained in a quasi-Gnostic narrative of personal salvation or chopped into discrete statements of faith. I’m not saying that these other types of narrative are necessarily untrue or unhelpful, only that they are a very misleading representation of how the Bible tells the story of Jesus.
The phrase ‘biblical witness’ in the above context has to do with the manner in which scripture as a whole conceptualizes and gives expression to the reality of God. My point was that for the most part scripture speaks of what is ‘deep and universal’ in narrative terms, perhaps to the extent that many of the ‘beliefs’ that we have traditionally taken to be universal are actually narratively and historically contextualized, contingent. Peter sees this as highly damaging to contemporary faith. I’m not so sure, but I do think that we see scripture more clearly if we resist the pressure of our modern belief system to find universal truths, precepts, doctrines, perspectives under every rock and stone.
I agree with you that we are bound to reconstruct the narrative from a particular vantage point and that for all practical purposes it is the reader’s context that is determinative. That is why it seems in some ways more helpful to regard this as a literary exercise than a historical one - it keeps us from that presumption of scientific objectivity.
What I hear you saying at this point, however, is that the argument as it is stated above fails to take account of the fact that it is illusory to think that we can go back to some pristine, unadulterated, perspective-free version of the story and start again. Correct me if I’ve got this wrong. In principle I agree with you, but I would argue that our retellings always reflect some shift in our thinking, in our values, in our presuppositions, in our intellectual context - and some of these shifts are more significant, more fundamental, than others. So I think my response would be that there are elements in our present interpretive context, which I regard as one of quite drastic and disorienting transition, that are pushing us in the direction of taking the narrative-historical-eschatological shape of the biblical material much more seriously. In other words, the present context of interpretation does not neutralize hermeneutic preferences; on the contrary, it is the basis on which we make crucial decisions about how we are going to interpret.
To my way of thinking, it is this contextualization of the hermeneutical choice that keeps us from succumbing to the embrace of he modern paradigm. Just as biblical ‘truth’ is narratively contextualized, so are our own attempts to restate that truth, retell that story.
Re: Why the historical Jesus matters
Andrew,
When I read your writing, I continue to get the feeling that you are striving for some sort of uninterpreted and ahistorical narrative-gem. Let me try to show you what I mean.
For instance, in contrast to modern evangelical’s misreading of the Holy Bible, you suggest that the there is a particular way that "the Bible tells the story of Jesus" and presumbably your alternative narrative more accurately represents it. However, I’m not sure "the Bible tells the story of Jesus." I’m more inclined to say that we actively read the Bible and we actively tell the story of Jesus.
In another instance, you say that ‘biblical witness’ "has to do with the manner in which scripture as a whole conceptualizes and gives expression to the reality of God." But I’m not sure the complexity and plurality of the Holy Bible can be reduced to or gives expression to a single conceptualization of the reality of God. The great many faith interpretations and narratives drawn from the Bible demonstrate this point, I think. The assertion that there is such a thing as a ‘biblical witness’ looks an awful lot like a gem.
I agree that "the present context of interpretation does not neutralize hermeneutic preferences." I would add that that is precisely why I don’t think "the biblical material" has a specific "historical-eschatological shape" that we should take "more seriously." Rather, I would say that the "historical-eschatological shape" is your artful reading of the biblical material given the context of relations you draw from. And I would say that you believe very strongly that we should take it very seriously, and thus your effort to persuade us to your reading.
Finally, you suggest that we have the capacity to "see the scripture more clearly" if we avoid the pressure of modern assumptions. But the presupposition that the scripture can in fact be seen "more clearly" sounds an awful lot like you’ve already succombed to the modern epistemological paradigm that the scripture is something out there that can be more or less accurately described and narrated. In contrast, I would say that the scripture is not something one can get more or less clearly. The scripture is something that we can actively construct different readings and interpretations of and communities around.
Re: Why the historical Jesus matters
I’m not sure what to make of this. I’m inclined to say that what you say is perfectly true, but so what? I’m not going to stop looking for a more coherent reading of scripture just because I recognize that it’s only my understanding, reflecting my point of view, my prejudices, my educational background, etc. The fact is, I believe that some interpretations of texts are ‘better’ than others - I don’t buy the argument that clarity is a false hermeneutical objective. Those interpretations are always going to be provisional and open to revision; they always arise out of limited perspectives. But the calling of the church is as much to express or embody truth as it is to express or embody justice or love. We do so in humility and under the banner of grace, we acknowledge the shortcomings of our intellects, we try to understand our biases; but I still think it is incumbent upon us as a believing community to articulate our identity with clarity and conviction.
You are right that scripture can be construed in different ways, that different communities can be formed around those readings. But that only makes sense if we pursue those readings far enough to create coherence and with enough conviction to create community. You are not going to shape a worshipping, missional, convenantal community that proclaims Christ as truth around radical hermeneutical scepticism. I don’t think postmodernism denies me the right to tell this story in a particular way with conviction.
Re: Why the historical Jesus matters
For the record, the words “deep and universal” are not Andrew’s, but come from a prior post which itself cited to another source. The prior post was mine.
What the post-modern and others want to be able to say is that there are no universalt truths. This in itself is a universal statement and therefor sets up a logical contradiction and is an invalid or untrue statement. The best that can be said is that some statements are universal and some are not. I don’t mind if someone were to say that the number of universal statements is zero.
No problem for post-moderns since the response is “why be logical?” Who made up the rules of logic anyway, and why should “I” follow them. Well, an argument for another day.
Re: Why the historical Jesus matters
Yes, I’m afraid the discussion got severed from the original comment.
Postmodernism may argue in principle that there are no universal or absolute truths - or at least that it is meaningless to assert that such truths exist. Any statement that we may make - with perhaps a few mathematical exceptions - is subject to various limitations of perspective, provisionality, prejudice, and so on.
But I don’t see why the postmodern or emerging church should not self-consciously affirm or confess that it has made a particular narrative uniquely and exclusively its own. I have no wish to worship a localized, culturally and intellectually contingent god. I worship the God who is creator of all things, who is sovereign over all things. But I hold to that truth while swimming in a sea of stories from which I cannot escape.
The question I had regarding what is ‘deep and universal’ was not whether universal truths exist but whether we negate such truths by reading the scriptures historically. I’m not persuaded that we diminish the significance of Jesus for ourselves by locating the Gospel narrative firmly in the flow of first-century Jewish history. I certainly don’t see that as a relativization of truth. My point is that narrative structures may convey the ‘truth’ that we wish to confess in some ways more effectively than our universalized abstractions.
We feel uncomfortable with this approach because we have bought into i) the platonic assumption that the historical narrative of scripture is merely clothing for abstract theological truths, and ii) the modern assumption that the highest form of truth is the rationalist-absolute one. But if we subject the biblical testimony to these assumptions, we are bound to distort it. My argument is that the best way for us to reconstruct biblical truth for ourselves in a postmodern context is to go back in an act of the critical-realist imagination and hear the stories as though for the first time, stripped as far as possible of interpretive overlays; then we can set about the creative and complex task of restating those stories for worship, for mission, for personal piety, and so on.
Re: Why the historical Jesus matters
Andrew,
Could you tell me what you mean by the “critical-realist imagination”?
Re: Why the historical Jesus matters
What the post-modern and others want to be able to say is that there are no universalt truths. This in itself is a universal statement and therefor sets up a logical contradiction and is an invalid or untrue statement. The best that can be said is that some statements are universal and some are not. I don’t mind if someone were to say that the number of universal statements is zero.
I think that a reflective postmodern would say that all stories and story tellers are situated in certain times and places. And then they might press you to tell them how one goes about seperating out "a universal statement" from the many situated stories and interpretations.
Re: Why the historical Jesus matters
Peter disagrees with Andrew’s seeking of "a core narrative that is different from that found in all Christian traditions," but I’m not too convinced that we do not need to continuously be seeking to renew our reading of the narrative - without feeling the need to discard all that is past. Historical theology has great value and does us a much service without perhaps providing the specific set of understandings that we do have to actively seek out for ourselves if we are to be the followers of a living faith.
I therefore do not think that we need to be beholden to a tradition such as ‘evangelicalism’ for example, even though many of my friends claim that it is possible (though difficult?) to believe in an evangelical way and yet not be insensitive to the fruits of postmodern insights and a narrative approach to theology.
Though we don’t perhaps state our premises often enough, still I believe that we are conscious that with the NT documents we are dealing with the fruits of the new believers’ faith that in turn had been based upon that ‘historical’ that we find so fascinating. While in itself this does not negate the historical in the NT, it does place us within a horizon that while inspired by a particular history is not itself that same history, but is now the history of the believers. But then the history of these believers really is what narrative theology has to deal with if there is to be any chance of our stepping into that horizon and interacting with it in any meaningful way!
Specifically for me, I do not argue that: "the early church drifted away from the narrative framework of the Jesus story" (Andrew’s point 5 above) at all, and I’m sorry that I gave that impression. What I did want to emphasize was that for Paul ( as for Peter, John etc.) the ‘history’ that made him a believer is a given. It is that very ‘history’ that he in turn bears witness to and that he calls "the gospel". It is this history that is now Paul’s gospel.
Paul himself considers that he is in the fulfilment period of what Jesus had prophesied, and that Jesus had himself set in motion - a denouement in history that with the rejection of Jesus own alternative way, leads inexorably towards fulfilling the very real apocalyptic warnings in Jesus’ teachings. I don’t think that there is much here to disagree on (I could be wrong!).
Where we seem to be parting company, given that we are still trying to base our understanding on the narrative itself, is whether for Paul and for the majority of the young crop of believers, the focus is more on the denouement than on the exciting business of living with a living faith that has surprisingly burst its way into mundane lives and forced a turning away from the mundane worldliness even in all its variety that had been its predecessor in these transformed, newly created lives/communities.
Certainly, while our understanding of worship in the early church does lead us towards the hope of the future, yet the majority of the emphasis is on understanding Jesus, if you wish ‘historically’, especially in the significance of his death and resurrection but also with equal emphasis on the life that Jesus led that took him so inexorably to his face-off with ‘the world itself and which in turn defines at its core what discipleship and what God’s new work are all about.
For Paul (at least) there is good evidence that he felt that the ‘new creation’ was already under way in his own transformation as well as in that of those that he was daily leading into faith and discipleship. There is also evidence that he believed that ‘the end’ or the even bigger "new beginning", would come surprisingly soon, but in this I don’t think that we are wrong to simply find his assumption to be a mistaken one, without having to seek its fulfilment within a history that clearly does not point to any such fantastic happening having yet taken place.
Live to serve : Serve to live
Re: Why the historical Jesus matters
Sam, it seems to me that there is a significant tension in Paul’s writings between the experience of ‘new creation’ life and the experience of suffering. To proclaim that Jesus is Lord is not merely to oppose Caesar and invite persecution; it is to embody the new life that the covenant community has found in the Spirit. But I think it is important to recognize that this new life was experienced under conditions of adversity - and of considerable uncertainty regarding the outcome of the missional venture of the early churches. Would the Jesus movement be proved right in defying historic Judaism? Would it survive the opposition of imperial paganism? Plenty of messianic movements and oriental cults have simply disappeared from the radar screen of history. My argument is that New Testament eschatology basically addresses that anxiety. Would the Jesus movement be vindicated?
The powerful experience of new life was undoubtedly there, but would it survive? This is the question that Paul addresses in Romans 8. They have been set free by the law of the Spirit of life (1-11); but they are called to be ‘fellow heirs with Christ’, which means that they must share in his suffering and glorification (17) - they have begun to find life but on the narrow path of suffering to which Jesus called his disciples. So in 8:18-39 Paul assures them that nothing, not even persecution and death, will overcome the faithful Jesus movement: they have the eschatological promise that they will overcome adversity. This is exactly what Jesus is talking about when he says that the gates of Hades, that is death, will not overcome his church (Matt. 16:17-18).
My argument in The Coming of the Son of Man is that it is this hope of vindication that is captured in Paul’s belief that the parousia of Christ, the fulfilment of the vision of the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven to receive the kingdom from God, would happen in the foreseeable future. It would mark the defeat of the imperial figure who set himself on the throne of God in defiance of the anointed one, deliverance of the church from systematic persecution, the end of paganism’s hegemony over the Greek-Roman world, and the public vindication of the faithful community.
So I don’t think Paul was wrong about this. We are mistaken in looking for a fantastic apocalyptic happening. He uses familiar and entirely realistic Old Testament imagery to construct a story of hope for communities which had found life at the expense of death, which had taken up their crosses and let go of their lives for the sake of Jesus and the announcement about what YHWH was doing for his people.
We look back on this period with inevitable complacency - we know that the church survived and went on to become a massive cultural and political force. But the early churches were going out on a limb, and I think it right that we see in the parousia motif the expression of a critical, urgent, and life-sustaining hope that was eventually fulfilled.
Re: Why the historical Jesus matters
I agree with all of your points, but I still find that when the question is one of vindication, Paul points straight back to the cross-and-resurrection. Every time Paul talks about Jesus as "Christ" and his veruy frequent uses of "in", "with", "through" Christ, Paul is pointing to a vindication that is alive now, here, today, and which because of this shocking start also eschatologically points to the greater (in orders of magnitude) that is still to come.
Tension, yes indeed, but it is such an immediate, temporal tension, the tension of being the first fruits in a new creation (shamelessly mixing metaphors) that has already undoubtedly begun. One might even argue that the loss of this tension is one of the things that has made Xtianity/Christendom just one more ho-hum religion.
I think it is a mistake to try to minimise the very pervasively real NT ties to the path of suffering that leads to the cross, and especially by arguing that it was a response to a passing circumstance, not something of the unique character of the early "Jesus Movement" itself. I think you’ll find that if you do such a massive subtraction, you may not be left with much else to work on that can still define itself by anything that Jesus or Paul do stand for.
Live to serve : Serve to live
Re: Why the historical Jesus matters
Yes, at times Paul looks back (1 Cor. 15:17), but he also (and I think more characteristically) looks forwards to an event that will vindicate both him and his churches for the faithful stance that they have taken in the face of opposition. So for example, when he is talking about the need for the Philippians to endure suffering, he urges them to hold fast to the word of life, ‘so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain’ (Phil. 2:16). It will be part of his vindication that he has built communities that will survive persecution. Similarly, in chapter three he speaks of suffering with Christ in order to share in his resurrection and be transformed at the appearing of the Christ (3:10-21). The Thessalonians suffer extreme affliction but they will be vindicated and glorified when Jesus is revealed from heaven (2 Thess. 1:4-10).
I would say that the point of the ‘in Christ’ statements is basically that the early church is participating in his story, which is a story of suffering, resurrection and a coming vindication at the parousia. The churches of the Greek-Roman world are included in ‘way’ of Jesus - they are the radical Jesus movement, because they experience the same extreme hostility when they announce the imminent arrival of the kingdom of God. That’s what Jesus and Paul stand for. What defines us, however, I would argue, is something different: the calling to be God’s new creation people as it has been reshaped by the redemptive events of the New Testament story.
Re: Why the historical Jesus matters
Andrew, I don’t wish to belabour the point but I do not agree with your assessment of the relative importance given in Paul’s letters to past/present as opposed to present/future leaning texts. The fact is that Paul constantly alludes to the "incarnational" and (relatively) only occasionally jumps to the future. I did have this doubt and ran through just Romans and came up with an incarnational (vs future) focus in: Rom 1:1-6, 3:21-26, 4:23-5:21, 6:1-11, (6:22-23), 12:1-2, (13:11-14) while in the whole of Romans 8 only vv18-25 could be considered ‘eschatological’. I don’t offer this as proof positive and I hope I’m not here misunderstood to be doing a variety of statistics or of prooftexting, but that’s a lot of stuff to ignore!
You could still argue that Paul’s view of the future conditions his work in the present, or that Paul had an interregnum approach wheras we should have a fulfilment approach (that’s closer to what you do seem to argue I think) but as far as Paul’s own written emphasis goes, I don’t think that there’s much doubt.
So, a big question is; was all that just a historical foundation, important but not at all binding on Christendom, assuming that somewhere along the way this preparousia period has mysteriously faded out altogether? Is discipleship now something that is not similar to what Paul and Jesus enjoined (for the most part) but is rather to be derived from those bits of whatever parts of the NT and OT actually seemed to be peering into a hazy future?
If nothing else, the very fact that late 1st C fellowships felt driven to record the ethical and kingdom teaching of Jesus as normative, even in a post Jerusalem world, seems to me to argue against such a wholesale discarding of a definition of discipleship that is tied to the way that Jesus and Paul themselves lived out their lives - and to be replaced with what?
Live to serve : Serve to live
Re: Why the historical Jesus matters
Romans is largely backward-looking in this respect because it addresses the question of the grounds on which Israel will be justified, namely the faithfulness of Jesus. But there is also a significant future orientation:
1. Most importantly, the whole argument sets out from the premise that the wrath of God is coming upon both the Jewish and the Greek-Roman worlds (1:18; 2:1-11). As I have argued elsewhere, I think that this must be understood in historical terms: Paul foresaw future events that would dramatically change the landscape of the ancient world and he interpreted them as the outworking of the wrath of God against Jewish disloyalty and pagan idolatry. This is why the whole question of justification arises: will Israel be saved from destruction by law or by trust?
2. The idea of ‘reigning’ is a future idea in Romans (eg. 5:17) which ties in with the general idea of a future ‘reign’ with Christ that is found in the New Testament. There is more to this than simply the expectation that believers will live with Christ when they are raised from the dead; but I would also argue that the future hope of resurrection in Christ includes the thought that the descendants of Abraham will at some point in the future be ‘raised’ to experience the life of an age to come.
3. I think Romans 8:18-39 speaks very powerfully of the belief that the community that suffers with Christ (8:17) will not be overcome by its enemies and that it will eventually be vindicated and glorified (8:30). This is a thoroughly forward-looking passage, and although Paul doesn’t refer explicitly to the parousia, I think the expectation of vindication and glory clearly presupposes the Son of man motif. Creation looks to the liberation of the sons of God at the parousia because it will provide confirmation of its own eventual liberation from the bondage to decay (8:19-21).
4. Chapters 9-11 directly address the question of how God will keep the promise to Abraham and whether national Israel will be saved from destruction. Paul has a decisive future event in view.
5. In Romans 12:19 Paul warns them not to seek to avenge themselves against those who persecute them because God ‘will repay’. I think, again, that that points to a realistic future expectation - whether it is Judaism or paganism that persecutes the church, both are scheduled for judgment.
6. Romans 13:11-13 speaks clearly enough of an approaching day when the community will be delivered from its enemies.
7. The expectation of personal judgment expressed in Romans 14:4 and 10 presupposes, I think, the idea expressed both in the Gospels and in Paul that when the Son of man is vindicated at the parousia the believing community will be judged with regard to its faithfulness in the face of uncertainty, hardship and persecution.
8. In Romans 16:20 Paul expresses his belief that ‘the God of peace will ‘soon crush Satan under your feet’. Again, I think that hope presupposes an eschatological narrative.
And all that is in Romans. There is ample evidence elsewhere in his letters that Paul’s thought reached both backwards to the cross and resurrection of Jesus and forwards to a moment of vindication, which I think must be understood as a moment in history if we are to do justice to the argument of the letters, the Old Testament background, and the concrete circumstances of the churches to which the letters were addressed.
The cross and the parousia are part of the same story: the cross is the basis for the hope that a community, a remnant, will be saved from the impending destruction of Israel and that that community will eventually overcome the pagan régime that will try very hard to eradicate it. The whole argument of Philippians, for example, is framed by the story of the church’s participation in the suffering of Christ and its expectation of being found pure and blameless on the day of Christ (1:10). This is an eschatological narrative and the only way to make sense of it is to ground it firmly in the actual historical experience of the community.
Re: Why the historical Jesus matters
Andrew early on pointed out that he agreed there is a difference between the Jesus of History and the Historical Jesus. I agree with Mr. Carr that the Jesus of History is not enough to build a faith upon, if that is what he was intending. The Historical Jesus exists in the kerygma.
I agree with just about everything Andrew says about the very earliest Christian community expecting the eschaton. Remember, the authentic writings of Paul are earlier than the synoptic and Johannine Gospel writings. Jesus was wrong (but see below) and Paul was wrong and, thereafter, the communities were left to scramble for meaning that would save face and credibility in the light of failure. The synoptics and John are largely reflective of this scramble. At least this is the hypothesis I am working with at this time.
But I just can’t get to the point of support for the notion that the eschaton and the parousia have already occured or that the earliest communities thought that these events had already occured. The word eschaton is a word of religion and has a specific meaning, the end of all time. It can’t, in my view, be appropriated to mean the end of "a" time. The resurrection can’t be construed as the second coming of Jesus the Christ because the crucified Christ had never before been prior to the crucifixion. Finally, in faith, without a time when injustice and suffering is rectified, I see little reason to continue to suffer now, or in the alternative, to walk the narrow path when the broader path is so much more fun.
I accept that Jesus was the prophet of a proleptic eschaton providing a foretaste of the Kingdom of God.
Re: Why the historical Jesus matters
"I have no wish to worship a localized, culturally and intellectually contingent god. I worship the God who is creator of all things, who is sovereign over all things."
Interesting.
Re: Why the historical Jesus matters
Why shouldn’t Jesus or Paul in principle have imagined a future event or period when the community, after years or decades or even centuries of persecution, would finally be delivered from its enemies and vindicated or justified for having believed in the good news? There is no question that historically both the fall of Jerusalem and the fall of pagan Rome were events of massive significance for the early church. They constituted in their different ways historical validation of the belief of the early church that hope for the people of God lay not in Jerusalem and the temple but in the way of Jesus, and that Christ and not Caesar was King of kings and Lord of lords. So why should not Jesus and Paul, using language and imagery familiar to them from the Old Testament prophets, have spoken of these events as decisive moments in the foreseeable future of God’s people?
There is no eschaton as such in the New Testament. There is, as you say, a clear sense of the imminence of the ‘last days’ - indeed in Hebrews 1:2 the ‘last days’ have already come. Why not put two and two together and conclude that these ‘last days’, as in the Old Testament (eg. Hosea 3:5), define a coming period of decisive judgment, transition, deliverance, transformation for the people of God? There is every reason biblically for thinking that the eschaton may be the end of an age in the midst of history - and no reason, therefore, to think that Jesus and Paul were mistaken in their belief that these things would happen soon.
Shiert, I don’t follow this. The motif of the coming of the Son of man on the clouds of heaven, I maintain, is used to affirm the eventual vindication of the suffering community - that is how it is used in Daniel, that is how it is used in the New Testament. There is also good reason for thinking that the New Testament associates with this a resurrection of the martyrs, of those who suffered and died as Christ suffered, so that they would also share in the vindication of the church; they are not excluded (cf. 1 Thess. 4:13-17).
The resurrection of the martyrs is a first resurrection clearly associated with the victory over Rome (Revelation 20:5). There will still be a resurrection of all the dead and a final renewal of heaven and earth when ‘injustice and suffering’ will be rectified. That hope is not removed. In the meantime, the calling of the church is not simply to suffer faithfully, though that may be necessary at times; it is to live as God intended his creation to be.
Re: Why the historical Jesus matters
Andrew, You took the time to respond to me and I will more fully answer your response.
I see that John Doyle responded to you and after a first reading, I adopt Mr Doyle’s response in some part. You begin your response by "Why shouldn’t… ." This can be construed as asking a hypothetical question or it can be a way of saying "isn’t it reasonable to believe that." Not sure which one you intended.
As for eschaton, I cannot accept an inter regnum definition. The Exodus was an eschaton? The Babylonian Exile was an eschaton? Eve’s bite of the fig, an eschaton?
Finally, when I use the term suffering I use it not in the sense of writhing in agony as a result of torture but rather the compassionate response to a horrendous world where babies die, wars are fought, murders are committed, women are raped and, unfortunately, I could go on. so long as even one among us is afflicted or suffers, so do we all.
In your response and comment on suffering I see the evangelical pursuasion surface. I reject the notion that just believing in the Christ makes all life in this world a happy and joyous occasion. Christ suffers, and believers with him. Does the make for a dismal and hopeless life? No, because both in this life and hereafter the believer is vindicated and free.
Re: Why the historical Jesus matters
I wish John Doyle had been a bit more forthcoming though.
The force of the ‘Why shouldn’t…?’ question was probably, as you suggest, ‘Isn’t it reasonable to suppose that…?’
Why can’t you accept an ‘inter regnum definition’ of eschaton? As I pointed out, eschaton is not itself a biblical word. We use it as a label for a particular type of event, but what if that labelling was based on a misreading of the texts? Whether it is appropriate to regard the events that you list as eschata is another matter, but I see no objection to using the word eschaton to denote the end of an age (such as the age of second temple Judaism) as well as the end of all things.
I agree wholeheartedly with you that we are called to suffer with those who suffer in the general sense which you describe - that is an inescapable consequence of love. But that is not the sense in which the New Testament generally makes use of the word. Overwhelmingly in the New Testament it is the suffering of the community that encounters opposition because it has chosen to confess Christ that is at issue, which is why the Son of man story is critical: the Son of man figure symbolically represents the community against which the pagan oppressor makes war because of their loyalty to YHWH and the covenant.
I also reject the notion that believing in Christ makes life a bed of roses, but I think we do a better job of interpretation if we recognize that so much of the New Testament comes within this controlling narrative of persecution and vindication. For the early church eventually to have been vindicated (by the destruction of Jerusalem, by the defeat of Roman paganism) certainly does not mean that Christians no longer suffer - vindication means that they have been shown to be in the right, justified for having taken the narrower and painful path leading to life. What comes after that is the experience of being God’s new creation, which fundamentally entails both being blessed - experiencing the wholeness and goodness of creation - and taking upon ourselves in different ways the ‘crisis’ of the old creation.
Re: Why the historical Jesus matters
"I wish John Doyle had been a bit more forthcoming though."
I suspect I stepped across the indistinct line that separates enigmatic from obtuse. It’s like a joke you have to explain — makes you wish you’d never told it in the first place.
Re: Why the historical Jesus matters
The use of a word intending that it have a meanng other than the meaning it is commonly understood to have is subversive to the rules of discourse. It is an ethical issue. It is certainly okay to make a “special pleading” but disclosure of a special or different meaning is necessary.
I assert that in theology the word eschaton means the last things, final judgment or the end of human history as we know it. To use the word in some other way, as for example intending last Aeon, requires disclosure.
I have searched the OT and NT in the Greek, and I cannot find the use of the word eschaton (eschatos being another gender of the same noun.)If this fact holds, it makes for a curious situation. If eschatos only means last, one would think that the word last would be and is used lots of times in the Bible. I would say that this fact cuts against the assertion that the word is a common everyday word that means last, but that does not necessarily support my assertion of meaning. It probably means that there are other words in Greek that mean “last” that I have yet to learn.
In any event, what am I to make of your statement that the word is not in the Bible in the Greek. Do you argue for the rule that words can mean whatever we say or think to ourselves they mean so long as not specifically contained in the Bible? I think this would be a foolish rule and you are certainly not foolish so you must have something else in mind.
At some level it is all about meaning. Since we can only communicate in language in written media, it is all about the meaning of words. Not the definitions, but the meanings.
skepticism and hope
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