When a modern person puts those four accounts into their mental cusinarts with no understanding of ancient genre of literature, and based entirely on a contextless reading of the Gospels, if by context we mean the ancient contexts””- stuff happens. Bad stuff. The evidence is distorted not clarified. Now the irony is that this happens just as assuredly with the modern secular historian who fails to take the lead from the ancient genre of the documents, but rather prefers the modern discipline of form or source criticism, just as assuredly it takes place, when Billy Bob Proverb mushes all these things into his red letter brain.
I want to suggest as clearly as I can that the four canonical Gospels are portraits of Jesus, not snapshots, they’re more like Monets four paintings of the front of Rouen Cathedral than they are like four black and white photos of Ted Williams taken at various angles in Fenway on the same day by four different photographers, and if one fails to analyze the document according to the type or kind of information it is trying to give you””- you’ve made a category mistake, a huge one.
Now the art historian examining those four Monet paintings knows perfectly well that he is looking at the real historical Rouen cathedral, but through the interpretive lens of impressionistic approaches to painting, which were concerned with light and the difference light makes in the way things appear to us. Impressionism reminds us that in fact reality is not in the eye of the beholder, for the eye can be deceived, any more than meaning is in the eye of the beholder. Yes, Virginia there are definitely meanings in those texts, but it is also true that we are active readers of the texts.
Ben Witherington is one of our very finest biblical scholars and a first rate communicator as this lecture at NOBS illustrates. I am excited he will be teaching Romans this March 12-13, at Truro.
Before my other comments, let me say I really like Witherington, and agree liked and agreed with the article. One would think by 2010 the issue of whether the Jesus of the Gospels is historical or not would be settled.
Ben wote:
[blockquote] I want to suggest as clearly as I can that the four canonical Gospels are portraits of Jesus, not snapshots, they’re more like Monets four paintings of the front of Rouen Cathedral than they are like four black and white photos of Ted Williams taken at various angles in Fenway on the same day by four different photographers, and if one fails to analyze the document according to the type or kind of information it is trying to give you—- you’ve made a category mistake, a huge one. [/blockquote]
This is not the place to lay out a detailed argument, but I believe that modern histories can also be subject to the above comment. It is a mistake to think that modern historiography is not story telling from a perspective by people with biases and agendas. We no more give positivist views of reality than did the Gospel writers. All history is perspectival.
One of the great dangers of many critical tools is when they take us “behind” the text to “what really happened”, which of course is to venture into the virtual, not the actual. There is nothing “behind” the gospels. All we have is the text before us. And yes, I believe there is a text!
On the issue of John’s Jesus, I would recommend Incarnate Word : Perspectives on Jesus in the Fourth Gospel by Marianne Meye Thompson. Here you will find an excellent presentation that debunks the notion that John’s Jesus is less than a truly human one. And her arguments come from the text of John’s Gospel.
Finally, I would take strong issue with the whole “wisdom” and Jesus thing. Again, much ink would have to be spilt here to take on the likes of N.T. Wright, Witherington, and a host of scholars. But I will say thet there is a danger trying to find a scriptural path through wisdom/torah et. al. to explain how it is the NT writers spoke of Jesus as divine. The NT is pretty clear – it was revealed. They did not need wisdom to get there. They already had the Son of God (Ps 2, 110 for example). After the resurrection, much of what Jesus said and did made sense. Jesus did and said as a man what God does and says. Contra many scholars, I do not believe the NT authors, especially Paul, used wisdom to validate speaking of Jesus as divine. Paul uses “God” for the Father, “Lord” for Jesus…neither of which are ever used of wisdom in the OT or extra-biblical literature (to my knowledge). Wisdom was not the path to Paul calling Jesus Lord – it was a meeting he had with the risen Jesus that did it, and it was kurios that gave him the language to express it – not wisdom.