Ch. 1 Summary
How do we know about Jesus? - Borg
Seeing Jesus: Sources, Lenses, and Method

Marcus speaks so well, that I have used only his words in excerpt to summarize his chapter.
Summary by Jock McTavish .

"How do we know about Jesus? What are our sources, what are they like, and how do we use them? For most of the Christian centuries, the answers to these questions seemed obvious. Our sources? The New Testament as a whole, and the four gospels in particular. ... the gospels were seen as historical narratives...

"But over the last two hundred years among historical scholars, both within and outside of the church, this common image of Jesus has dissolved. Its central elements are seen no longer as going back to the historical Jesus, but as the product of the early Christian movement in the decades after his death. Jesus as a historical figure was not very much like the most common image of him.

The Nature of the Gospels

The Gospels as a Developing Tradition

"There was a need to adapt the traditions about Jesus to new settings and issues as early Christian communities moved through time and into the broader Mediterranean world. Moreover, the traditions about Jesus grew because the experience of the risen living Christ within the community shaped perceptions of Jesus' ultimate identity and significance.

History Remembered and History Metaphorized
"Jesus really did do and really did say some of the deeds and teachings reported about him.

"I define metaphor broadly to include both symbol and story. ... Metaphorical language is intrinsically nonliteral; its central meaning is "to see as" - to see something as something else. ... Thus, even though metaphorical language is not literally true, it can be powerfully true in a nonliteral sense.

"Jesus probably did restore sight to some literally blind people. But the way the stories are told in the gospels gives them a metaphorical meaning as well.

A Crucial Distinction

"The name Jesus has two referents. ...

" ... a human figure of the past: Jesus of Nazareth, a Galilean Jew of the first century

"... a divine figure of the present: the risen living Christ who is one with God.

"My own preferred terminology is "the pre-Easter Jesus" and "post-Easter Jesus."

"By the pre-Easter Jesus, I mean of course Jesus during his historical lifetime ...

By the post-Easter Jesus, I mean what Jesus became after his death. More fully, I mean the Jesus of Christian tradition and experience.

"I want to emphasize the importance of making the distinction between the two. When we don't , we risk losing both.

"Such was my experience. I didn't know the distinction when I was growing up in the church, and so I combined everything I heard about Jesus into a single image: stories from the gospels, texts from the rest of the New Testament, doctrinal statements from the creeds, affirmations from Christian hymns and preaching. My uncritical synthesis generated what might be called "the composite Jesus." ... I thus thought of Jesus as a figure of history as more divine than human. ... Moreover, I thought of him as having the mind and power of God. ... But note what had happened: I lost the historical Jesus as a credible human being. ... I also lost the living risen Christ as a figure of the present.

"When we do make the distinction, we get both.

My Lenses for Seeing Jesus

1. ... the gospels are the product of a developing tradition, and they contain both history remembered and history metaphorized.

2. ...the study of ancient Judaism. ... Jesus must be understood as a Jewish figure teaching and acting within Judaism, or we will misunderstand what he was about.

3. ... the interdisciplinary study of Jesus and Christian origins, especially the social world of Jesus.

4. ...the cross-culturual study of religion. ... I emphasize especially ecstatic religious experience and the nonordinary states of consciouness associated with it.

The Importance of Worldview

"One more crucial factor ... a fifth lens ... better understood as a "macro-lens" affecting all of our seeing. A worldview is one's most basic image of "what is" - of what is real and what is possible.

"... worldviews fall into two main categories: religious and secular. For a secular worldview, there is only "this" - and by "this" I mean the visible world of our ordinary experience. For a religious worldview, there is "this" and "more than this." The "more than this" has been variously named, imaged, and conceptualized; I will simply call it "the sacred." A religious worldview sees reality as grounded in the sacred. For a secular worldview, there is no sacred ground.

"Modernity is dominated by a secular worldview. ... with the birth of modern science. ... it functions in our minds almost unconsciously ... It is especially corrosive of religion. ... It reduces truth to factuality ...

"I see reality as far more mysterious than the modern worldview (or any other worldview) affirms. ... All of this has stongly affected my work as a historian of Jesus and Christian origins. I can take much more of the tradition seriously.

Method: Early Layers Plus Context

Step One: Discerning What Is Early

• "Paul is our earliest New Testament author. ... predates Mark by about 20 years. Yet Paul says relatively little about the historical Jesus ...
• "Q is the earliest written layer in the gospels. ... (it is ) a hypothetical document ... about two hundred verses long ... (it has) little narrative ...
• "Mark is the earliest of our existing gospels, written near 70 CE
• "Matthew and Luke each had a copy of Mark ... They also had a copy of Q
• "John's gospel is very different from the synoptic gospels, and is not a primary source for the historical Jesus.
• "The gospel of Thomas, discovered about fifty years ago in Egypt;, is (like Q) a collection of sayings (114 in all).
• "... I see Mark and Q as the two primary documents behind the synoptic gospels.

"... how does one discern what is early: First, the most objective test is multiple attestation in two or more independent sources, at least one of which is early. ... Second, when a core of material has been established through multiple attestation, texts that have only single attestation can be accepted if they are coherent with this core. ... A third factor ... When a saying or story reflects (a tendency towards developing tradition) one must be suspicious of it.

Step Two: Historical Context

"Historical context is crucial, for words spoken and deeds done take on meaning only in context.

"There are several resources for knowing about the world of Jesus. ... literary sources ... archaeological investigation ... the interdisciplinary study of his world.

"Knowing the economic and political dynamics typical of such societies can help us understand what the world of Jesus was like.

"The combination of Roman rule and Hellenistic cultural influences meant that traditional ways and identities were in question. ... It was a restive time. ... Jesus thus lived in a watershed century..

"I want to emphasize as I conclude that both the historical Jesus and the canonical gospels matter to me as a Christian.

October 01, 2000