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and Theology
Biblical Theology Bulletin: A Journal of Bible
DOI: 10.1177/014610799902800403
1999; 28; 135 Biblical Theology Bulletin: A Journal of Bible and Theology
Halvor Moxnes
The Historical Jesus: From Master Narrative to Cultural Context
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135
The Historical
Jesus:
From Master Narrative to Cultural Context
Halvor Moxnes
Halvor
Moxnes,
Dr. Theol.
(University
of
Oslo)
is Professor of
New Testament at the
Faculty
of
Theology,
the
University
of
Oslo, Norway (e-mail: halvor.moxnes@teologi.uio.no).
He re-
cently published
The
Theological Importance of the
"Third
Quest" for
the
Historical Jesus,
in WHOSE HISTORICAL JESUS? edited
by
Wil-
liam E. Arnal and Michel
Desjardins (Waterloo,
ON: Wilfrid
Laurier
University Press, 1997), 132-42. He also edited and con-
tributed to CONSTRUCTING EARLY CHRISTIAN FAMILIES: FAMILY
AS SOCIAL REALITY AND METAPHOR
(London, UK:
Routledge,
1997),
and has contributed to some of the
joint publications by
the
Cultural Context
Group.
Abstract
How do historical
Jesus
studies look if we
attempt
to see them within the context of the
ongoing
debate
about how to write
history?
The
present
situation is characterized
by
the
challenges posed
to the
"objective"
history
of
modernity by
social
history,
cultural studies and
postmodern
criticism. In
particular
the notion of a
"master narrative," that is, a
paradigm
that structures the
presentation
of a historical
event,
is
challenged.
The
essay attempts
to situate five scholars and their
presentations
of the historical
Jesus
within the context of this
debate and to raise the
question
of what their
underlying
"master narrative"
might
be.
John
P. Meier and E. P.
Sanders are seen as
representing
"traditional" modern historical studies, although
Sanders has an alternative
master narrative.
Approaches
critical of modernism are
represented by
Richard A.
Horsley (social criticism),
John
D. Crossan
(social
and cultural criticism with a
post-modern form)
and Bruce
J.
Malina
(cultural
context
criticism).
Recent discussions on &dquo;the historical
Jesus&dquo;
have been
quite
heated and
have,
for the most
part,
taken
place
within
the context of
theological
and
religious
studies.
Although
the
topic
is &dquo;the historical
Jesus,&dquo;
there has been little inter-
est in
situating
these studies within the
larger
framework of
methodology currently
so
prominent
in
historiography
it-
self. The
goal
of the
present essay
is to initiate such an inter-
action. I come to this
study
as a New Testament scholar and
an outsider to the field of
history,
but feel that
somebody
must make a start at such a discussion.
Although my
mate-
rial is taken
primarily
from the discussion
among
historians
in the United States, I believe that the issues are of
general
interest.
The main
part
of the
essay
is an
attempt
to situate five
scholars within the context of this debate, with two scholars:
J.
P. Meier and E. P.
Sanders, representing
&dquo;traditional&dquo; mod-
ern historical studies and three other scholars: R.
Horsley, J.
D.
Crossan,
and B.
J. Malina, representing
alternative
ap-
proaches
from social and cultural
perspectives.
This
essay
is
not a review of the
present scholarly
debate on the histori-
cal
Jesus,
but rather an
attempt
to focus on some method-
ological
issues. What is the
perspective
on
history
found in
these studies? What reflections are there on the
assump-
tions and
presuppositions
that the author
brings
to his at-
tempts
to reconstruct
history?
Are there
any underlying
&dquo;master narratives&dquo; that structure the authors
presentation
of the historical
Jesus?
History, Modernism,
and Recent
Challenges
In his recent book HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THE TWEN-
TIETH CENTURY
(1997) George
G.
Iggers
sums
up
the con-
temporary problematic
situation of historical studies: &dquo;In-
creasingly
in the last
twenty years
the
assumptions upon
which historical research and
writing
have been based since
the
emergence
of
history
as a
professional discipline
in the
nineteenth
century
have been
questioned&dquo; (1).
The subtitle
of his book indicates what he sees as the
assumptions
as well
as the current
questions regarding
the field of
history:
FROM
SCIENTIFIC
OBJECTIVITY
TO THE POSTMODERN CHALLENGE.
As an
example
of this
ongoing
debate
among
historians I
shall use TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT HISTORY (1994) by
Joyce Appleby, Lynn
Hunt and
Margaret Jacob (see
also
Appleby
et al.; Ross). Although
the authors
represent
new
trends in
writing history, they clearly
see themselves in a
mediating position. They
do not share the fear of the &dquo;tradi-
tionalists&dquo; that the new trends will dissolve
history
into
many subjective histories,
without
any
claims to
objective
truth. The authors first
place
the
growth
of
history
as a dis-
Halvor
Moxnes,
Dr. Theol.
(University
of
Oslo)
is Professor of
New Testament at the
Faculty
of
Theology,
the
University
of
Oslo, Norway (e-mail: halvor.moxnesCteologi.uio.no).
He re-
cently published
The
Theological Importance of the
&dquo;Third
Quest&dquo; for
the
Historical Jesus,
in WHOSE HISTORICAL JESUS? edited
by
Wil-
liam E. Arnal and Michel
Desjardins (Waterloo,
ON: Wilfrid
Laurier
University Press, 1997), 132-42. He also edited and con-
tributed to CONSTRUCTING EARLY CHRISTIAN FAMILIES: FAMILY
AS SOCIAL REALITY AND METAPHOR
(London, UK:
Routledge,
1997),
and has contributed to some of the
joint publications by
the
Cultural Context
Group.
136
cipline
within the context of the
development
of
modernity
and the natural sciences. Then
they
show how this scien-
tific
paradigm
was
challenged
in this
century by
other meth-
ods and
perspectives,
most
recently postmodernism.
In the
third
part
the authors
develop
their own
argument
for the
possibility
of
writing history
that is not
totally subjective.
History
as a Result
of Enlightenment
and Modernism
History
as a
discipline
owes its existence to the
Enlight-
enment and the
protest by
reason
against
the normative
role
assigned
to tradition and traditional authorities. Its de-
velopment
conforms to that of modern
thought
in
general,
with the natural sciences as its
dominating
intellectual
para-
digm. Just
as the natural sciences were
regarded
both as the
cause for
development
and as the
path
towards the modern-
ization of
society,
so also were the &dquo;human sciences&dquo; cre-
ated :
history, psychology, sociology
and social
anthropology.
History
as a &dquo;science&dquo;
represented something
new. Unlike tra-
ditional
history,
it did not
just
recount facts as a chronicle but
aimed at
explaining history.
It wanted to find universal laws for
historical
development, analogous
to Newtons laws of nature.
The
underlying questions
behind all historical research
were how the modern world came about and what the rest
of the world could learn from the
development
to moder-
nity
in Western societies. An
important political develop-
ment in the 19th
century
was the creation of &dquo;nation-
states&dquo; and of
&dquo;identity&dquo;
associated with nationhood. Writ-
ing history
became an
important
contributor to this
process.
In a
chapter
titled
&dquo;History
Makes a Nation&dquo;
Appleby,
Hunt,
and
Jacob (91-125)
show how American
history
was
written as a
story
of
progress, focusing
on the
development
of national
identity
and
unity.
Instead of a
story
of the indi-
vidual
development
of thirteen
English colonies,
the com-
mon
past
was constructed so that it led
up
to the Declaration
of
Independence.
Thus this event was made to look like the
natural end
product
of the
history
of the colonies.
Criticism
of History as Modernity
The
very
idea of
development
and
progress,
be it in
technology,
social structures or
political organization,
was
central to
writing history
in this
period.
It was this
very
mas-
ter narrative,
i.e. the
interpretative paradigm
of
history,
that was criticized and
seriously
threatened
through
new
trends in historical studies. After earlier attacks on the
par-
adigm by
the so-called
&dquo;progressive&dquo;
historians at the
begin-
ning
of the 20th
century,
the most
important impulse
to
change
the course of
writing history
came
through
the es-
tablishment of social
history
as an academic
discipline
in
the 1960s. This was a result of
many converging processes,
among
others democratization of
higher
education with
many
more women and students from a
working
class back-
ground
and a
larger
ethnic
variety
in academia. There was
an
explosion
of studies in social
history, partly
on a national
level and
partly
within local
groups, neighborhoods
and
ethnic communities. The center of attention was no
longer
the autonomous &dquo;hero&dquo; or the
typical
American individual-
ist,
but rather the
group.
These
studies,
based on the
experi-
ences of the &dquo;outsiders&dquo; in American
society,
revealed to
what
degree
earlier
presentations
of
history
had built on val-
ues that were
predominantly white,
masculine and Protestant.
Such studies also
represented
a break with the
conception
of a
single,
universal and uniform human nature. Instead it
became
necessary
to
study
how different societies and cul-
tures
shaped
human motivation. This social
history precipi-
tated a crisis in the American tradition of
writing history.
A
history
that showed how
people
lived in
specific cultures,
determined
by
time and
space, challenged
a
conception
of
an unbroken historical
development
from the
Founding
Fa-
thers to
present-day
American
society.
Another
development emphasized
cultural
history
and
was influenced
by
social
anthropology.
The most
prominent
representative
of this
trend,
Clifford
Geertz,
understands
social
anthropology
as an
interpretative
science in search of
meaning,
rather than as an
experimental
science
searching
for laws. Geertz
(3-30) rejects
the idea that culture can be
used as a causal
explanation.
It is more
adequate
to see cul-
ture as a context within which
ways
of
acting,
institutions
etc. can be
meaningfully
described. Cultural
history
also
represents
a criticism of the
attempts
to
explain everything
in economic or social
categories.
Cultural
history presents
peoples
belief and rituals as
independent actions,
not
just
as a result of their socio-economic situation.
The
concept
&dquo;culture&dquo; as it is
developed by
Geertz
rep-
resents a
challenge
to traditional
history
and comes close to
postmodern
criticism of
history.
Derrida and Foucault and
their
emphasis
on the function of
language
hold a central
place
in
postmodern
criticism.
Knowledge
is
regarded
as
created
by language,
and therefore Foucault and Derrida
question
whether there exists a truth that one can seek to
find or whether this is
simply
an illusion. Is the
past
a
reality
that one can
seek,
so that
history
will
correspond
to that
fact as &dquo;truth&dquo;? This is the crucial
question
to historical
writing posed by post
modern criticism
(Bunzl: 1-7).
Post-modern Criticism
of Historys
&dquo;Master Narrative&dquo;
&dquo;
A
postmodern
criticism of
history
understood as &dquo;sci-
ence&dquo; will
replace
the
emphasis
on causal
explanations
with
a focus on the self reflection of the historians and the liter-
137
ary
construction of
history
as text. This is a criticism that
hits at the
very
center of traditional
history
in that it
ques-
tions the
possibility
of
attaining
to a
history
outside or be-
hind the text and of
explaining
a historical
development.
This criticism creates a
problem
for
history
as narrative with
a
beginning,
a center and a conclusion. It is not this
literary
form for
history
in itself that
Appleby, Lynn
and Hunt
(231-37)
find decisive, but rather the
underlying
&dquo;meta-
narratives&dquo; or &dquo;master
narratives,&dquo;
which are
important
be-
cause
they represent
&dquo;a
grand
scheme for
organizing
the in-
terpretation
and
writing
of
history&dquo; (232).
These master
narratives are not individual
projects, consciously
or uncon-
sciously perceived by
an
author,
but rather &dquo;models&dquo; or
&dquo;par-
adigms&dquo;
that structure
ways
of
thinking
within a
society.
Three of the most
important
master narratives of mod-
ern
history
are &dquo;the heroic model of
progress through
sci-
ence,
the
epic
of the
unfolding
American
notion,
and the
idea of the &dquo;modern&dquo;
(Appleby, Hunt,
and
Jacob: 232).
These three master narratives can be
expressed
in more
general terms,
not so
directly
associated with American his-
tory,
as &dquo;the notion of secular salvation or
progress&dquo;
or &dquo;sci-
ence in its broadest sense.&dquo; Most
important, however,
is the
rephrasing
of the master narrative of the
&dquo;unfolding
Ameri-
can notion&dquo;
(of
the autonomous
hero)
in more
general
terms as &dquo;the
subject
or rational human
agent&dquo; (Appleby et
al.:
387-89). Ideologies
like
Marxism,
liberalism and even
postmodernism
are also
presented
as master
narratives,
since
they
&dquo;offer
sweeping
stories about the
origins
of Amer-
ican and Western
problems,
and the direction that lives
may
take in the
present,
as well as remedies for the future&dquo;
(Appleby, Hunt,
and
Jacob: 232).
These master narratives have come under
heavy
criti-
cism from
postmodernists, particularly
because
they
build
on ideas from the
Enlightenment
about
emancipation
and
development.
Postmodern criticism
may
describe this idea
of
&dquo;progress&dquo;
as &dquo;the notion of secular salvation&dquo; and attack
such master narratives for
being ideological, legitimizing
discourses that make
totalizing
claim to
meaning. (Appleby
et al.: 387).
Against
this criticism from
postmodernism Appleby,
Lynn
and Hunt defend the
writing
of
history
in &dquo;the narra-
tive form with its
incorporation
of causal
language&dquo; (235).
They
think that such master narratives are a
defining
ele-
ment in
writing history. Together
with social theories
they
are
prerequisites
for
any interpretation
and
explanation.
Historian
Dorothy
Ross is more
receptive
to
postmodern
criticism in her article: Grand Narrative in American Histori-
cal
Writing:
From Romance to
Uncertainty.
She sees two
strands in
19th-century
American
writing
of
history:
the
story
of Western
progress
and the
story
of Americas
excep-
tional status in the
world,
which made world
progress
de-
pendent upon
America. For
her, then,
America
represented
the ideal future and an
example
to the world. On this back-
ground
Ross
suggests
that &dquo;This American
grand
narra-
tive,&dquo;
she
suggests,
&dquo;lies in the
literary territory Northrop
Frye designated
romance&dquo;
(652).
She sees
&dquo;grand
narrative&dquo;
as a
mythic
construction in the
way
that it conceives of hu-
man
history
as a
single story, uniting past
and future in co-
herent
meaning.
Ross makes a distinction between
&dquo;grand
narrative&dquo; re-
ferring
to &dquo;the
story
of all
humanity&dquo;
and &dquo;master narrative&dquo;
as the
story
of a
&dquo;segment
or nation.&dquo; The critical
question
that
postmodernism poses
to
history
is whether there is
any
longer
&dquo;the
possibility
of a
grand
narrative that
gives history
coherence and
meaning&dquo; (Iggers: 141 ) .
I think that the dis-
tinction between &dquo;a
grand
narrative&dquo; and &dquo;master narra-
tives&dquo;
(plural)
is crucial. In
light
of this distinction
(which
they
themselves do not
make)
the
position
of
Appleby,
Hunt,
and
Jacob
on master narratives becomes more ac-
ceptable. They
think that master narratives are
necessary
to
build and
uphold identity,
both for individuals and for
groups.
Even if recent historical studies have rendered
problematic
several of the old master
narratives,
this does
not
imply
that historians should
give up any attempt
to de-
velop
such
general patterns
for historical
writings (231-37).
But this
implies
that new master narratives cannot have the
universal claims to
validity
that characterized those within
&dquo;modern&dquo;
history.
We must rather think in terms of master
narratives for
groups
or
regions
that can enter into
dialogue
with one another. I consider this
openness
to
dialogue
to be
very important.
One
overarching &dquo;grand
narrative&dquo; with
universal claims is
clearly oppressive,
but
separate
master
narratives that are closed and refuse to listen to others
may
likewise threaten the coexistence of
separate groups
and
sectors. The use of
history
to
support
exclusivist claims to
ethnic identities
among competing groups
in the Balkan
peninsula
is a case in
point.
Is There a Master Narrative for
Historical
Jesus
Studies?
What are the master narratives of the
history
of Chris-
tianity ?
Since
Judeo-Christian antiquity
the dominant
&dquo;grand
narrative&dquo; of
history
was that it had a transmundane
purpose
and direction. With the
Enlightenment
and Modernism
this
&dquo;grand
narrative&dquo; was
replaced by
a secularized version
that
placed &dquo;progress&dquo;
and
&dquo;development&dquo;
at its
center,
and
it is now this that is
being questioned (Iggers: 141).
In Rosss
138
terminology
we
may say
that
Christianity
has lost its
hege-
mony
as a
&dquo;grand
narrative&dquo; and now
represents
a
segment
with its &dquo;master narratives.&dquo; It
may
be useful to take a look
at some master narratives that have lost their
explanatory
power.
One
type
of master narrative is that of a decline from
the
age
of the
spirit
and freedom to the
age
of institution
and control. That master narrative was for a
long
time at-
tractive to
Protestants,
who used
early
Catholicism as a
nega-
tive
description
of the
post-apostolic age
in
early Christianity.
Another
mainly
Protestant
paradigm
was that of a conflict
between two
principles,
for instance between &dquo;law&dquo; and
&dquo;grace,&dquo;
&dquo;works&dquo; and &dquo;faith.&dquo; Such dichotomies were often
applied
to
descriptions
of
Jews
versus
Jesus
and his followers
in
first-century
Palestine and
paralleled
in
pictures
of the
Roman Catholic Church versus Protestant reformers dur-
ing
the Reformation.
Increasingly
such master narratives
have been
questioned
and
replaced by
more
ecumenically
oriented ones.
But the
question
here
is,
what are the master narra-
tives within which the historical
Jesus
has been inscribed?
Historical
Jesus
studies have
traditionally
taken the form of
a standard historical narrative, with a
beginning,
a middle
and an end. But is it
possible
for historical research to create
such a narrative? Luke T.
Johnson (122-33) argues
that this
is not
possible
for historical
Jesus scholarship,
not even in its
&dquo;conservative&dquo; form. He does not
question
that one can
find some &dquo;facts&dquo; that are more historical than
others,
but
he does not think it
possible
for an historian to contextualize
them into a narrative that can
give
them a
meaningful
inter-
pretation, apart
from the
Gospels.
&dquo;If the narrative frame-
work that has
placed
the
pieces
in a certain
meaningful
pattern
has been
abandoned,&dquo;
he
maintains,
&dquo;then the re-
maining pieces
cannot
by
themselves form a new
pattern&dquo;
( 131 ) . Johnson appears
to think that there is
only
one
para-
digm
for a
meaningful pattern,
and that this is
provided by
the
Gospels.
In
light
of the bias of the
Gospels (which
also
differ between
themselves),
this seems too much to ask. But
Johnsons
criticism does raise the
question
of the
larger
mas-
ter narrative of the
history
of
Jesus.
The
legacy
of the &dquo;sec-
ond
quest
for the historical
Jesus&dquo;
was a master narrative of
continuity
between the historical
Jesus
and the resurrected
Christ of the church, a narrative within which the
present
church could inscribe itself. This master narrative of unbro-
ken
continuity
between
Jesus
and the
present
church seems
to be similar to the traditional
synthesis
of American
history,
concerned
primarily
with the
development
of an
institution,
i.e. church or state and with those who have
traditionally
identified themselves with that institution. Is it this master
narrative and its
legitimization
of the
identity
of the church
that is threatened
by
new trends in
historical Jesus
studies?
Historians within the Modernist Tradition
We shall start with two scholars who
may
be identified
as
representatives
of the &dquo;traditionalist&dquo;
camp
of
historians,
i.e. historians who work within the historical
paradigm
of
modernism and who are little affected
by
the recent criti-
cisms of that form of historical
writing.
John P. Meier: A Master Narrative
of
the
Separate
Co-existence
of
Science
(Historical Jesus)
and Faith
(Christ)?
John
P. Meier has now
completed
two volumes of three
in a massive work
(1600 pages
so
far)
titled A MARGINAL
JEW
with the subtitle RETHINKING THE HISTORICAL
JESUS.
The sheer amount of material, the critical
sifting
of
sources,
and the extensive discussion with other scholars make it an
instant &dquo;classic.&dquo; The title A MARGINAL
JEW
is meant to be a
teaser for the readers interest
(I: 1-6),
but it also
points
to a
question
that Meier wants to
pursue throughout
his work:
in what
ways
was
Jesus marginal
within his milieu? But since
he does not follow this
up
with a
theory
of
marginalization
or of social structures in
Palestine,
it remains a dead end.
Summarizing
the methods of
sociology
and
literary
criti-
cism,
Meier
keeps
his distance from both of them. He distin-
guishes
between
recognizing
social relations at the time of
Jesus,
which he wants to
do,
and
attempting
a
sociological,
possibly
a cross-cultural or
socio-anthropological analysis,
which he does not want to do. His
goal
is to find reliable
data. Even if
selecting
and
organizing
them
comprises
an in-
terpretation,
he wants to
keep
that to a minimum.
Likewise,
Meier
regards literary
criticism as useful in the
analysis
of in-
dividual
passages,
but since it is not an historical method it
cannot hold a
prominent position
in the search for the his-
torical
Jesus. Thus,
Meier comes across as one who knows
about new trends in
history yet represents
the ideals of the
traditional
writing
of
history.
A
Scientific Jesus?
Given this traditional
approach,
what does it mean
that Meier wants to &dquo;rethink the Historical
Jesus&dquo;?
What
are his reflections on a
proper methodology
for such a
pro-
ject ?
Meier
attempts
to
distinguish
between &dquo;the real
Jesus,&dquo;
&dquo;the historical
Jesus&dquo;
and Christian faith in
Jesus
Christ.
&dquo;The real
Jesus&dquo;
we can never know. This is
partly
because
it is in
principle impossible
to know
anyone
in his/her &dquo;total
reality&dquo;
and
partly
because we lack sufficient sources for the
139
life of
Jesus.
&dquo;The historical
Jesus&dquo;
is a modern abstraction
and a
scholarly
construct. Meier
places
his research within a
tradition that
goes
back to the
Enlightenment: &dquo;By
the
Jesus
of
History
I mean the
Jesus
whom we can &dquo;recover&dquo; and ex-
amine
by using
the scientific tools of modem historical re-
search&dquo;
(I, 25). Although
Meier uses the term modem historical
research as if it were a
self explanatory concept,
he does em-
phasize
that it is
possible
to reconstruct
only
a
fragment
of
the
Jesus
of
history-a fragment
that allows for
many
differ-
ent
interpretations.
His confidence in
history
as an
objective
science
ap-
pears
in his idea of a
symposium
that could reach
agreement
about who
Jesus
of Nazareth was and what he wanted.
Meier
envisages
such a
symposium consisting
of one Roman
Catholic,
one Protestant,
one
Jewish,
and one
agnostic
scholar. He thinks that it is
possible
to overcome the limita-
tions of ones own
position by keeping
to a common set of
criteria and
listening
to criticism from others. This notion is
similar to that of
&dquo;objective history&dquo;
based on fact and un-
disturbed
by
theoretical or
political presuppositions-that
was central to modernism in the last
century.
It found a
typ-
ical
expression
in this instruction to the contributors to the
CAMBRIDGE MODERN HISTORY
(1902):
&dquo;Our Waterloo
must be one that satisfies French and
English,
Germans and
Dutch alike&dquo;
(Appleby, Hunt,
and
Jacob: 76).
Meier
pre-
supposes
that research on the historical
Jesus implies
an in-
terest in
Jesus,
but he thinks it is
possible
to be
academically
objective
and distance oneself from &dquo;faith.&dquo; He likens his-
torical
study
to the natural sciences: &dquo;We abstract from
Christian faith because we are involved in the
hypothetical
reconstruction of a
past figure by purely
scientific means:
empirical
data from ancient documents,
sifted
by
human
minds
operating by inference, analogy
and certain
specific
criteria.&dquo; To liken
history
to natural science
may
make it
&dquo;objective,&dquo;
but at the same time this limits its
importance:
&dquo;Both method and
goal
are
extremely
narrow and limited:
the results do not claim to
provide
either a substitute for or
the
object
of faith&dquo;
(I: 30, 31 ) .
The Master Narrative
of
Faith: Christ Not
the Historical Jesus
It follows from Meiers distinction between &dquo;scientific
history&dquo;
and &dquo;faith&dquo; that the historical
study of Jesus
can be
of
only
limited
importance
for
theology. Theology
is a cul-
tural construction,
and since the
Enlightenment
Western
culture has been
permeated by
a historical-critical mode of
thinking. Therefore,
Western
theology
can address this cul-
ture with
any credibility only
if it
incorporates
this historical
perspective
in its
methodology.
But Meiers
appraisal
of the
importance
of the historical
Jesus
for modern
theology
is ex-
pressed primarily
in
negative terms,
as he
points
to the dan-
gers
of
formulating
a docetic
christology
and of
using Jesus
to
legitimate
a
bourgeois Christianity. (This
last
point
is bal-
anced, however, by
a statement that
Jesus
breaks with all
ideologies, including theology
of
liberation.)
Historical
Jesus
research
may
add
&dquo;depth
and color&dquo; to faith ...
but it cannot
provide
its
&dquo;essential content.&dquo;
If its influence
upon theology
is limited, scholarship
on
the historical
Jesus
has even less relevance for &dquo;faith.&dquo; His-
torical
Jesus
research
may
add
&dquo;depth
and color&dquo; to
faith,
Meier maintains,
but it cannot
provide
its &dquo;essential con-
tent.&dquo; He
goes
as far as to
say
that the historical
Jesus
is of no
any
use to the
believing
Christian if one raises the
question
of the direct
object
of Christian
faith,
which he defines as
&dquo;Jesus Christ, crucified, risen, and
presently reigning
in his
church&dquo;
(I, 198).
This
concept
of an
&dquo;objective Christology&dquo;
independent
of human relations seems to
corresponds
to
Meiers
presentation
of the historical
Jesus.
The two first
volumes of his work focus on
&dquo;Jesus
seen in
himself,&dquo;
not on
Jesus
in his relations to other individuals or
groups (except
for his
relationship
to
John
the
Baptist).
Meiers
position
here reminds one of the focus
upon
the autonomous
(male)
individual as the cultural ideal in traditional American his-
tory (Appleby, Hunt,
and
Jacob: 116-25).
In a Roman
Catholic context this
represents
a master narrative encom-
passing
the
history
of the church under the
reign
of
Jesus
Christ:
Jesus
is described in
lordly categories
vis-~-vis the
believers. It is curious that Meier does not ask more insis-
tently :
who is this
Jesus
Christ who is
presently reigning
in
his church? What
bearing
has a
study
of the
history
of
Jesus
and his relations to
people
on relations between
Jesus
Christ
and believers
today?
There is an imbalance between the
large
amount of work that Meier has done on the historical
Jesus
and his disclaimer of its relevance to the master narra-
tive
of Jesus
Christ.
Not all Roman Catholic
theologians
take such a
nega-
tive view of the relevance of historical
Jesus
studies. A
prominent example
is E.
Schillebeeckx,
whose book
JESUS:
AN EXPERIMENT IN CHRISTOLOGY
unfortunately plays
al-
most no
part
in Meiers
study.
Schillebeeckx takes a
positive
140
and therefore also more controversial
position
on the im-
portance
of research on the historical
Jesus:
&dquo;The believer
does indeed see Gods
saving activity
realized in
Jesus life,
which without the material about
Jesus
recovered
by
the
historical method would not be
possible.
This then is the
importance
of the
historical Jesus
for
making up, concretely,
the content of faith&dquo;
(75).
In contrast to
Meier,
Schillebeeckx
sees &dquo;faith&dquo; not
merely
as the Christian
dogma
about
Jesus;
it
includes &dquo;Gods
saving activity&dquo; in Jesus relations
to
people.
The Context
of
Meiers
Study:
Church and
University
Can Meiers distinction between &dquo;faith&dquo; and &dquo;science&dquo;
be
explained by
the
position
of American Roman Catholic
scholars? Historical
Jesus
research is a
relatively
new enter-
prise among
Roman Catholics in the United States. The
most
prominent representative
of such studies was
Ray-
mond E. Brown with his massive and learned works on the
birth stories and the death of
Jesus.
He
paved
the
way
for
historical critical studies in an area that was
very
sensitive
to Catholic faith. Until a
generation ago
historical-critical
Biblical
scholarship
had a rather uncertain
position
in Ro-
man Catholic circles. There was also a
division,
in the
United States,
between the secular
university
tradition and
the Roman Catholic tradition of
higher
studies. This divi-
sion has been
bridged
within the last
generation
as Roman
Catholic students in
increasing
numbers have studied at
secular universities and Catholic universities have become
more like secular universities. The
position
held
by
Meier
reflects this
development;
it
represents
an
appropriation
of
a
&dquo;modern,&dquo;
&dquo;secular&dquo; version of traditional historical meth-
odology acceptable
within the
university.
On the other
side,
historical
Jesus
research is rendered
acceptable
within the
church as
part
of
&dquo;theology,&dquo;
which as an academic disci-
pline
must relate to the modern world. There is an
unspo-
ken
presupposition
in Meiers
argument, however,
which
ensures that this research never becomes
threatening.
This
is the
teaching
office of the Roman Catholic Church,
which
awarded Meiers book an
Imprimatur. Faith,
and that means
in
many
contexts the
teaching
office of the
Church,
remains
in all vital
questions
unaffected not
only by
historical re-
search but also
by theological
studies.
Is Meiers master narrative a version of the
hegemony
of science over
religion
as some of his conservative critics
within the Roman Catholic church would
say (Fisichella;
Johnson: 126-33),
or does it rather
exemplify
the coexis-
tence of science and faith within American universities?
Appleby, Hunt,
and
Jacob (43-S 1) point
to the
positive
at-
titude toward the
Enlightenment among early Protestants,
who had
escaped
from
persecution by
the established
churches. Their
view,
that the Bible and science could
co-exist,
was more Protestant than Catholic.
Although
it
persisted
for a
long time,
it could not withstand the advance
of historical criticism of the Bible. It
gave way, then,
to an
outlook in which
history
was assimilated to natural science.
The
teaching
of
religion
in universities could not
challenge
science, but had to
recognize
it is a
separate body
of knowl-
edge,
with its own rules. On the other
hand, religion
could
also claim to be a
separate entity,
not to be disturbed
by
the
results of science.
If this
suggestion
has
something
to recommend
it, Meiers
master narrative of &dquo;Christ
separate
from the historical
Je-
sus&dquo;
may
reflect an
integration
of Catholics into the wider
tradition of American scientific
scholarship
careful to de-
fine a
place
for &dquo;faith.&dquo; The
dogma
of Roman Catholic faith
is
professed: &dquo;Jesus Christ, crucified, risen,
and
presently
reigning
in his
church,&dquo;
and Meier constructs a careful
pic-
ture of the historical
Jesus.
But
they
are in no
way
inte-
grated.
The two
pictures
are not allowed to enter into
competition,
nor are historical studies used to
support
the
teaching
of the church.
E. P. Sanders: A New Master Narrative
o f
Jesus
in
Continuity
with Judaism.
E. P. Sanders is
probably
the most influential historian
of
Jesus
within the modernist
tradition,
to which he
belongs
for several reasons.
First,
in
JESUS
AND
JUDAISM (1985)
he
places
his
pyro-
ject
within the context of
history
as an
attempt
to find
explanations
and causal relations. He
explicitly
refers to Al-
bert Schweitzer and his
way
of
posing
the historical
ques-
tion : there must be
something
that
explains
the
sequence
of
events
(23-24) .
This interest leads to
questions
like these:
What was the cause
of Jesus death?
Was there in
Jesus pur-
pose
an
opposition
to
Judaism
that caused his death? Was
the
split
between
Christianity
and
Judaism
based on con-
flicts in
Jesus
life?
Second, Sanders wants to be an
objective, impartial
historian.
Although
the
questions
raised above have tradi-
tionally
had
great theological importance,
Sanders wants to
keep
them within a
purely
historical mode of
questioning
and avoid
discussing
the
significance
of the historical
Jesus
for
theology (2).
Thirdly,
Sanders focuses on &dquo;facts&dquo; about
Jesus
in his
presentation
as
furnishing
more secure historical evidence
than the
&dquo;sayings&dquo;
of
Jesus,
the
meanings
of which are al-
ways
embroiled in
controversy
and
disagreement.
Whereas
the earlier
Jesus
research had focused almost
exclusively
upon
the words and
teaching
of
Jesus.
Sanders instead
141
chooses to
put
an
emphasis upon
the
&dquo;facts,&dquo; meaning Jesus
activities
(3-13). Among
the most
important
of these activi-
ties are the
baptism
of
Jesus by John,
the
calling
of the disci-
ples,
the conflict in the
temple,
and his crucifixion
by
the
Romans.
Sanders
profile
as an historian becomes clearer in his
later and more
popular book, THE HISTORICAL FIGURE OF
JESUS (1993).
Here he
presents
himself
simply
as &dquo;the histo-
rian&dquo; vis-A-vis
&dquo;everyone,&dquo; &dquo;people,&dquo;
&dquo;the reader,&dquo; &dquo;the
poli-
tician,
novelist or moralist&dquo;
(6-8).
&dquo;The historian&dquo; cannot
pick
and choose those
parts
of the
Gospels
that are
inspir-
ing :
&dquo;The historian
selects,
but on different
principles:
what
can be
proved,
what
disproved,
what lies between?&dquo;
(8).
Stated
differently:
&dquo;The aim of the book is to
lay out,
as
clearly
as
possible,
what we can
know, using
the standard
methods of historical
research,
and to
distinguish
this from
inferences, labeling
them
clearly
as such&dquo;
(5).
His
project
is
thereby presented
as
&dquo;history,&dquo;
as if there was
only
one
meaning
to &dquo;historian&dquo; and &dquo;standard methods of historical
research.&dquo; This is a
position
which the
great (and
contro-
versial)
historian of
antiquity
Moses I.
Finley
calls
&dquo;profes-
sionalism&dquo;
(5-6),
in which the
ideological presuposition
involved in
writing history
is hidden. Sanders does discuss
how he deals with the sources for the
history of Jesus, partic-
ularly
the
gospel material,
but because he does not raise the
larger
issues that have been discussed
among
historians
lately,
his version of the
history
of
Jesus
comes across as
&dquo;self,evident&dquo; or
simply
the most
qualified,
an
impression
that is
heightened by
lack of references to other scholars
and their sometimes
very
different views.
Sanders Construction
of
Palestine
It is in the
question
of how to understand a
society
that
historians views have been most
divergent (Appleby, Hunt,
and
Jacob. 129-59).
Should a
history
focus on
political
is-
sues and the leaders-that is,
view a
society
from the
top
down-or should it
emphasize
social issues and local or
marginal groups? Moreover,
is
society
to be viewed from a
perspective
of
&dquo;harmony&dquo;
or rather the
opposite,
&dquo;conflict&dquo;?
These are not
simply empirical questions;
models and
per-
spectives
are at issue as well. When Sanders
places Jesus
within
Palestine,
how does he understand this
society?
What models does he use to understand Palestine in the
first
century,
CE? When he
emphasizes
in
JESUS
AND
JUDAISM
that
Jesus
was
part
of the
Judaism
of his time he is
primarily
concerned with
Judaism
as a
religious system.
And even if
he
places
s on
Jesus
relations with
&dquo;sinners,&dquo;
he is but little
concerned with social and economic
perspectives.
Sanders
approach
in THE HISTORICAL FIGURE OF
JESUS
is that of a
straight
historical narrative, and we
may only guess
his
pre-
suppositions
from the structure of his narrative. The
very
format of the book reveals a clear distinction between &dquo;Po-
litical
setting&dquo; (ch.3)
and
&dquo;Judaism
as a
Religion&dquo; (ch. 4).
Although
the text shows the interrelatedness
(through
function)
of the same
groups
of leaders in both areas,
there
is no discussion of
specific
forms of
interrelation,
so that it is
easy
for readers to
perceive
them as two distinct
&dquo;sectors,&dquo;
as in a modern Western
society.
It is the same with his de-
scription
of what he terms the
&dquo;political setting &dquo; (ch. 3),
i.e.
Palestine in
general,
and &dquo;the
setting
of
Jesus ministry&dquo; (ch.
8),
viz. Galilee. These
settings
are described without re-
course to models that
might
be useful to
explain
ancient soci-
eties, for instance
&dquo;empire,&dquo;
or
&dquo;patron-client&dquo;
relations. It
becomes
clear, however,
from his
description
that he does
not view Palestinian
society
under Roman rule in this
pe-
riod from a conflict
perspective (28, 31 ) .
Nor is the eco-
nomic issue
important
to
him,
be it in Galilean
society
in .
general
or in
Jesus teachings
on the
Kingdom. Finally,
he
sees no substantial conflict between the Hellenistic cities of
Galilee and
Judean villages;
so no such conflict influenced
Jesus ministry.
My point
here is to
argue,
not that Sanders is
wrong
on
these
issues,
but that he does not
explicitly
discuss his mod-
els and
presuppositions.
He is of course not unaware of such
discussions. In an article
( 1993b)
he takes direct issue with
descriptions
of Palestine from the
perspective
of social and
economic conflict, especially represented by
Richard Hors-
ley.
But even so he
argues
on the basis of better historical
evidence
(432)
rather than
presuppositions
and
larger
frame-
works of
interpretation.
A New Master Narrative:
Continuity,
Not
Conflict
between
Jesus
and
Judaism
In terms of the
present
debate within historical studies
Sanders comes across as a
representative
of &dquo;traditional&dquo;
history.
His most
important
contribution to research on the
historical
Jesus
lies in the
way
he
challenges positions
within
that
paradigm.
Most
importantly,
Sanders has
rejected
the
master narrative
long
dominated Second Testament schol-
arship.
Its main
point
was that
Jesus
and the first Christians
experienced
a conflict with and broke
away
from a
Judaism
that was
basically
a
legalistic religion.
Scholars found
proofs
for this
paradigm
both in Pauls
proclamation
of
justifica-
tion
by
faith without observances of the
[Hebrew] law,
and
in the
gospel descriptions
of a conflict over the Law between
Jesus
and the Pharisees. It was this conflict that
ultimately
led to the death
of Jesus.
A
major part
of Sanders works has
constituted an effort to
replace
this master narrative with a
142
more suitable one. This effort
began
with Paul in PAUL AND
PALESTINIAN
JUDAISM (1977).
Instead of the
negative pic-
ture of the Law as &dquo;demands,&dquo;
he found in Palestinian
Juda-
ism a
long
tradition that
spoke
of &dquo;covenantal
nomism,&dquo;
that is,
a
loyalty
to the Law that had as its source trust in
Gods covenant with Israel. The narrative that determines
Sanders historical construction in
JESUS
AND
JUDAISM
is a
&dquo;restitution
eschatology&dquo;
that
according
to Sanders domi-
nated
Judaism
at the time of
Jesus
and to which
Jesus
himself therefore subscribed. This
perspective gives Jesus
a
much more
positive
role vis-A-vis the
Judaism
of his
period
than studies that focus on the conflict between
Jesus
and
the
Judean
leaders.
The crucial
question
is therefore whether Sanders can
defend this narrative-whether he can
prove
not
only
that
it was
part of Judaism
at the time, but also that it was
repre-
sented
by Jesus.
To do that Sanders
changes perspective
in
evaluating
the sources. He
begins
with the conflict in the
temple,
which he so
interprets
as to fit his
picture
of
Jesus
into the master narrative he has established
(1985: 61-76).
Sanders finds that this was a
symbolic
action
through
which
Jesus prophesied
both Gods destruction of the
temple
and
his
restoring
both of the
temple
and of Israel. It was
not,
however, intended to be a
cleansing
of the
temple
or a
pro-
test
against temple
sacrifices.
But a
major question
raised
by
this
interpretation
of
Je-
sus actions in the
temple is, why
should
Jesus
foretell the
destruction of the
temple
if he was
opposing
neither the
temple
as a cult institution nor the
politics
of the
temple
(Scott: 263-67).
Do such
interpretations, perhaps,
not fit
Sanders master narrative of a
Jesus
in
harmony
with
Juda-
ism or his
picture of Jesus
as a
&dquo;religious&dquo;
leader who was not
involved in
&dquo;politics&dquo;?
Sanders
suggests
that
Jesus
saw his
own role as that of Gods final herald before the
coming
of
the
kingdom. Jesus expected
an
eschatological
restitution of
Israel in which sinners and others who had been excluded
should have a
place
and in which
Jesus
and his
disciples
should have
prominent positions. According
to Sanders
there was
nothing extraordinary
in these ideas within con-
temporary Judaism.
Sanders
rejects
the view that
Jesus
was
in a conflict with the
Judean
law
concerning Sabbath,
food
rules,
and
purity.
What was
extraordinary
about
Jesus
was
the result of his
life, viz.,
the resurrection and the establish-
ment of a
continuing
movement. Sanders does not
attempt
to
explain
the
resurrection, but he thinks that the
teaching
of
Jesus
had
prepared
the
disciples
for the
possibility
that
the
Kingdom
of God
might
be established in a dramatic
way.
What
finally happened inspired
them and
empowered
them,
and it is this that was
unique.
Sanders new framework for the
presentation of Jesus
is
an
example
of a
largely
successful
attempt
to turn around a
paradigm
of
interpretation. Important aspects
of this inter-
pretation may
be
challenged,
for instance his focus on &dquo;acts&dquo;
(as &dquo;facts&dquo;)
instead of &dquo;words&dquo; and his
understanding
of the
temple
incident. Such criticism does not
necessarily
invali-
date the new
paradigm,
but is does show that a
paradigm
of
interpretation
can never be based on &dquo;mere
facts&dquo;;
it
always
implies
an hermeneutical decision and a choice of
presup-
positions.
History Supports Theological
Patterns
Although
Sanders
emphatically
wants to be an histo-
rian and not a
theologian,
his conclusions have
important
theological implications.
His historical
arguments,
more-
over, appear
to be constructed
along
the same lines as domi-
nant
theological
reflections
upon Christology.
It is
possible
to read Sanders
study
of the historical
Je-
sus as a deconstruction of one of the most
important
master
narratives in Christian
theology.
The constructions
of Juda-
ism in the first
century
CE and of
early Christianity
are not
just
of historical
importance, they
have ramifications for
Christian
theology
even
today. Jesus
conflict with
Jewish
leaders over the Law
belongs
to the core of Christian theol-
ogy
and
identity.
Thus Sanders
attempt
as an historian to break down
barriers between
Jews
and
Jesus
has
implications
for con-
temporary
relations between Christians and
Jews.
His
pic-
ture of
&dquo;Jesus
the
Jew&dquo;
makes it
impossible
for Christians to
claim
Jesus only
for themselves. Since this frees
Jesus
from
the constraints of Christian
traditions, Sanders
scholarship
should
appear
as a threat to Christian tradition. But the
way
Sanders as an historian describes
Jesus
in his &dquo;context&dquo; ac-
tually opens up
a
dialogue
with traditional concerns of
Christian faith. Sanders uses &dquo;context&dquo; not in the broad
sense of the
social, political
and
religious
situation of Gali-
lee, but in the more narrow sense of
&dquo;ideological&dquo;
context
(1993a: 78-97).
He himself
explains
&dquo;context&dquo; as the &dquo;men-
tal constructs&dquo; of
people
at the time of
Jesus,
what
they
thought
and what their ideals were.
Among many possible
contexts Sanders chooses two that he considers most rele-
vant to understand
Jesus.
The first is the
ideological
or
theological setting
for the
presentation
of
Jesus
in the Gos-
pels,
and this Sanders finds in the framework of the
Judean
&dquo;history
of
salvation,&dquo;
how God acted
through history
to
save Israel and the world. The other context refers to three
historical
settings-the period surrounding Jesus ministry,
the
period surrounding
the
ministry of John
the
Baptist,
and
the
period
of the first Christians after
Jesus
execution-as
143
well as the ideas that were central to these
periods.
Both
John
the
Baptist
and the first Christians
expected
that the
&dquo;climax of
history&dquo;
was close at hand,
and that must also be
true of
Jesus.
Sanders
puts
it in
strong
terms:
&dquo;Jesus
must fit
this context&dquo; (1993a: 95). Thus,
Sanders has chosen two
theological
&dquo;mental constructs&dquo;:
&dquo;history
of salvation&dquo; and
&dquo;eschatology&dquo;
as the
primary
&dquo;contexts&dquo; for
Jesus (we might
also call them
paradigms
of
interpretation
or &dquo;master narra-
tives&dquo;).
In this
way
he
emphasizes
the
ideological
and theo-
logical aspects
of
understanding
the historical
Jesus.
He
goes
so far as to describe
Jesus
as a
&dquo;theologian&dquo;
and to
say
that his book is about &dquo;a
theological
idealist&dquo;
(1993a: 96).
Therefore,
even if Sanders holds that he
speaks
as an
historian,
his construction of the historical
Jesus
as a &dquo;theo-
logical
idealist&dquo; facilitates a
dialogue
with
theologians
and
communities of Christian faith. The historical &dquo;contexts&dquo;
that he uses to
interpret
the intentions of
Jesus, &dquo;history
of
salvation&dquo; and &dquo;the
coming
of the
Kingdom&dquo; appear
to
sup-
port
a traditional
Christological presentation
of
Jesus.
Thus
Sanders
history
is one that at least
indirectly supports
and
informs
theology.
Social and Cultural Criticism of
Traditional
History
In this section I shall focus on some historians who
rep-
resent new tendencies. The
large
number of recent studies
on the historical
Jesus
makes it
impossible
to
give
a full
pre,
sentation. The scholars that are chosen: Richard
Horsley,
John
Dominic
Crossan,
and Bruce
J. Malina, represent posi-
tions and criticisms from social studies and cultural anthro-
pology. Many
others could have been chosen
(for instance
Burton
Mack, Marcus
Borg, Douglas Oakman).
It is
impor-
tant to
note, however,
that whole areas are not included:
Jewish
studies
(in particular
Geza
Vermes),
feminist
presenta-
tions of the historical
Jesus (in particular
Elisabeth Schiissler
Fiorenza), postcolonial presentations
and
postmodemist posi-
tions that
challenge
the
very
idea of a &dquo;historical
Jesus.&dquo;
Richard A.
Horsley.
Master Narrative:
Empowerment of
the Masses
The contrast to the studies of historical
Jesus
discussed
in the earlier sections is obvious in Richard A.
Horsleys
works. His book
JESUS
AND THE SPIRAL OF VIOLENCE
(1993)
is written from a
specific point
of
view, indicated
by
its
subtitle,
POPULAR
JEWISH
RESISTANCE IN ROMAN
PALESTINE. It is within this context of resistance that Hors-
ley
treats
Jesus
and his movement.
Horsley
is
inspired by
Marxist historical
studies,
in
particular by
the British schol-
ars P. E.
Thompson
and E. Howsbawm. His criticism of
pre-
vious
scholarship
on
Jesus
is similar to that voiced
by
&dquo;the
progressive&dquo;
historians around the turn of the
century
who
claimed that the
presentation
of the
Founding
Fathers in
traditional American
history
was based
solely
on studies of
the elite
(Appleby, Hunt,
and
Jacob: 137-42).
Horsley
criticizes earlier studies of the historical
Jesus
on two counts:
they
did not
pay
attention to the differences
in interests between the
aristocracy
and the masses,
and
they
focused too much on the individual instead of the
larger group.
These studies
speak
of
&dquo;Judaism&dquo;
as a
unity,
in-
stead of
seeing
that it was a
society
characterized
by
com-
plexity
and conflicts. Moreover, they
write an &dquo;idealistic
history&dquo;
rather than
attempting
to
integrate &dquo;meaning&dquo;
in
material, social,
and economic contexts
(1993a: 153-54).
For
example,
historians have used
Judean
&dquo;zealotism for the
Law&dquo; as an
explanation
of
Judean
resistance
against
the
Romans.
Horsley
then
argues
that the socio-economic situ-
ation must be considered and finds the cause of the
Judeans
resistance in the frustration
they experienced
from
living
in
a colonial situation under Roman rule.
An
Apocalyptic Jesus Renewing
the Local
Community
Horsley
uses modern
analytical categories
to describe
the social and
political
function of
popular apocalyptic
at
the time
of Jesus.
The
popular reinterpretation
of
apocalyp-
tic
was, according
to
Horsley,
first of all based on
memory:
it
represented
an historical
perspective
of
&dquo;remembering&dquo;
Gods
mighty
acts towards the
people. Secondly,
it was built on
creative visions
inspired by
the
knowledge
that God was in
control.
Finally,
it was based on a critical
demythologizing
of the established
order, which was accused of
being
full of
demonic forces
(1993a: 143).
It is within this
picture
of
popular apocalyptic
that
Horsley
situates
Jesus. According
to
Horsley Jesus
shared an
understanding
of &dquo;the
Kingdom
of God&dquo; as Gods
saving
ac-
tivity
to liberate
people
from demonic and
political
forces
and to renew individuals as well as social
groups
to a new
form of life.
Jesus
focus for this renewal was the
village
and
its social
life,
within which he
sought
to re-establish
egali-
tarian social relations.
Therefore, renewal also
implied
a
judgment
of the
ruling
institutions of Palestine for their
op-
pression
of the local communities
(1993a: 157, 207).
It is within this context that
Horsley
discusses the tem-
ple
incident.
Jesus
attacked those
aspects
of the
temple sys-
tem that most
clearly
showed the
exploitation
of the
people
by
the
ruling
elite.
Horsley
thinks that the accusations
against Jesus
before the Sanhedrin had some basis in that he
really
was involved in a
revolt,
but it was not on his
part
a vi-
144
olent revolt.
Horsleys
Political Context and His Master Narrative.
What is the master narrative of
Horsleys presentation
of
Jesus?
The contrast to the dominant
paradigm
of &dquo;Chris-
tian
origins&dquo;
based on a
&dquo;religious&dquo;
conflict between
&dquo;Juda-
ism&dquo; and nascent
&dquo;Christianity&dquo;
becomes
increasingly
clear
in
Horsleys
later books
(see especially 1995:8f.).
Three re-
current
emphases
are worth
pointing
out. First,
he stresses
the collective rather than the individualistic dimension.
Second,
he holds that there was no
separate &dquo;religious
sphere&dquo;
distinct from the
political
and economic dimen-
sions of life
(1993a: xi).
And
third,
he
emphasizes
the
plu-
rality
of contexts: there was no such a
thing
as a
unitary
society,
a cultural
unity,
or one
symbolic system.
Furthermore,
instead of
working
with &dquo;essentialist con-
cepts&dquo; Horsley argues
that a historian must
study
concrete
social life. This does not exclude the use
of larger
models to
understand societies, however; viewing
Galilee from the
per-
spective
of an
imperial situation,
he stresses the
political~co-
nomic
power
relations between cities and
villages.
Horsleys
studies
distinguish
themselves
primarily by
the use of
specific
models in his
description
of Palestinian
community.
Thus he draws a
sharp
distinction between
&dquo;elite&dquo; and &dquo;masses,&dquo;
he
analyzes
the Palestinian situation as
a
&dquo;colony&dquo;
and he draws attention to various
protest
move-
ments. He bases his
description
of Palestinian
society
on a
model of conflict, which of course
represents
a
challenge
to
the societal model based on
harmony
that is so
strong
in
churches and
theological
milieus. His
integration
of
social,
economic, political
and
ideological perspectives
in describ-
ing
Palestine
represents
a break with the modern
outlook,
which considers
&dquo;religion&dquo;a separate
sector of
society.
For all his
emphasis upon
the historical task there is a
surprising correspondence
between
Horsleys description
of
Jesus
in the Galilean context and his
understanding
of the
political
situation of the modern
world-especially
the non-
western world
(cf.
1993b:
164-69).
He sees a
strong parallel
(a &dquo;dynamic analogy&dquo;)
between the
struggles
in the Bible
and current social
struggles;
he
actually develops parallels
between Galilee and
Nicaragua
and between
imperial
Rome
and the United States! This
parallel
is also
suggested by
the
listing
of various
groups
in inner cities in the United
States,
in South
America,
and South Africa who have found
JESUS
AND THE SPIRAL OF VIOLENCE useful
(1993a: vii-viii).
But
Horsley
does not
represent
an &dquo;unreformed&dquo; Marx-
ism or a
social-history
master narrative of
global progress
through
conflict. His
Jesus
moves within local communities
and
villages,
and his
progress,
termed &dquo;renewal&dquo;
by Horsley,
focuses on this level: &dquo;Renewal of the life of the
people
meant renewal of the fundamental
social-political peasant
life,
the
village&dquo; (1993a: 324).
It was not directed to the state
level,
to the institutions.
Horsley argues
that &dquo;there is no in-
dication in the
gospel
tradition that
Jesus
saw
any
role for
the
ruling
institutions of his
society&dquo; (1993a: 325). Thus,
the renewal of the
people
takes
place
on the local
level;
it is
the
victory
of the &dquo;little
community.&dquo;
A
glance
at what has
happened
to the
grand narratives, especially
to those of the
Marxist and social democratic
left, provides
an
interesting
parallel. According
to D. Ross
(668)
recent historical events
and
political
disillusionment have taken a hard toll on the
plausibility
of these
grand
narratives. There has been a ten-
dency
towards studies of smaller
groups
and subcultures,
lives of
ordinary people,
in order to
give
value to their lives.
In his
general
statements and criticisms of &dquo;traditional his-
tory&dquo; Horsley attempts
to
preserve
the
grand
narrative of
progress through
conflict. In his actual historical
writings,
however,
he follows the
general
trend in that he comes
down to the local level and finds a renewal of traditional
peasant life,
an
&dquo;empowering&dquo;
of
people (Ross: 665-66).
John D. Crossan: A Master Narrative
Lost in Context?
John
D.
Crossan,
with his
literary approach,
contrib-
uted for
many years
to a
newly insightful interpretation
of
the
parables
of
Jesus,
but it was THE HISTORICAL
JESUS
(1991)
that made him well known to a broader
public.
The
book became in instant success on the American book mar-
ket and attained cult status, not
totally
unlike THE NAME
OF THE ROSE
by
Umberto
Eco,
a combination
mystery
novel
and church
history
of the late middle
ages.
In
fact,
THE
HISTORICAL
JESUS
has several
aspects
in common with THE
NAME OF THE ROSE: it has a main theme with direct
appeal
to its
readers, e.g.,
and it has a
large
amount of exotic histor-
ical and cultural
material, loosely
connected to the main
story.
This creates a somewhat
ambiguous impression:
the
book has a main
story
line that inscribes itself into a
type
of
master
narrative,
but it tends to
get
lost in a
confusing
amount of contextual material.
&dquo;Strict&dquo; Historian-or Cultural Contextualizer?
This
contrasting picture
is evident also in the
way
Crossan
emerges
as an historian
through
his work. The
most
striking
characteristic of Crossans book is strict &dquo;sci-
entific&dquo;
analysis
of sources combined with the artistic use of
a broad cultural context. On the one
hand, Crossan
sympa-
thizes with a familiar
l9th-century
criticism of the ideal of
historical studies: &dquo;Need I
say,
at this
point,
that the
way
in
145
which the nineteenth
century
dreamed of
uncommitted,
objective, dispassionate
historical
study [should]
be
clearly
seen for what it was,
a
methodological
screen to cover vari-
ous forms of social
power
and
imperialistic
control?&dquo;
(1991:
423).
On the other hand Crossans own source criticism
ap-
pears
to be
firmly
rooted in the traditional
approach
to
history
as strict science.
Using
an illustration from archaeol-
ogy
to make his
point,
he
compares
the methods used
by
historical
Jesus
research to the
unsophisticated archaeologi-
cal
digs
from last
century.
He terms these
&dquo;archaeological
plundering,&dquo;
more concerned with
extraordinary
finds than
with a solid
study,
and
argues
instead fora model
analogous
to that of modern
archaeology
with its careful
stratigraphy
used to
distinguish
between material from different
periods.
Crossan here comes across as an
objective, strictly
sci-
entific scholar. This
impression
is
supported by
the
many
appendices
in the
book,
with lists of
passages
and how
they
divide into various strata of traditions
(1991: 427-66).
This
image
of strict science
is, however,
somewhat
deceptive,
as
there are
major problems
related to the value and
dating
of
his sources. Crossans list of sources contains a number of
apocryphal
and Gnostic texts and
fragments
to which he
gives
a controversial
very early dating,
some earlier than the
synoptic Gospels.
Criticism of sources and
establishing
a text
corpus
relevant to the historical
Jesus
form
only
the first
step
in
Crossans
three-step method,
a
step
on what he terms the
&dquo;microcosmic level.&dquo; The next
steps
consist in an
interpreta-
tion of the texts within their
context, first on a &dquo;mesocosmic&dquo;
and then on a &dquo;macrocosmic&dquo; level.&dquo;
The &dquo;mesocosmic&dquo; level
comprises
a Greco-Roman
context and
history,
the choice of which
represents
a wid-
ening
of the context
compared
to the usual concentration
on
Judaism.
Crossan claims that
first-century Judaism
was
part
of Hellenism.
Jews
had to relate to this context either
by
an &dquo;exclusive&dquo; reaction
(i.e., by rejection)
or
by
an &dquo;in-
clusive&dquo; reaction
(i.e.,
more
positively). Crossan, wanting
to
understand
Jesus against
the
background
of an &dquo;inclusive&dquo;
Judaism (not
in an
elitist,
but in a more
popular form)
thus
includes Palestine and Galilee in a common Greco-Roman
world. This is a
quite
controversial
suggestion,
both in the
way
Crossan subordinates a
specifically Jewish identity
to a
Hellenistic influence and
especially
in his claim that this in-
fluence was
strong among
a
village population
in Galilee.
On the
third, &dquo;macrocosmic,&dquo;
level Crossan
interprets
texts in
light
of a cross-cultural social
anthropology
that
also cuts across time barriers. To his credit he discusses a
theme not often touched
upon by
historians: what are the
larger
cultural
systems
that we
explicitly
or most often im-
plicitly
use when we
interpret
historical material? On the
other hand,
he
ignores
the
large
amount of work that has
been done in this area
by
scholars like Bruce
J. Malina, John
H. Elliott, Jerome
H.
Neyrey
and other members of the
Context
Group.
Drawing
a distinction between the historical &dquo;before&dquo;
and the &dquo;now&dquo; of the
interpreter,
Crossan describes the
&dquo;now&dquo; of himself and his readers in this
way: they belong
to
&dquo;individualistic, democratic,
urban middle-class
America,
often with ethnocentric
presumption&dquo; (1991: 3).
His ensu-
ing explanation
of how
Jesus
cultural context differs from
ours,
is
signaled by
the subtitle
describing Jesus
as &dquo;a Medi-
terranean
Jewish peasant.&dquo;
I
suppose
that to most readers
this is a rather
cryptic
statement in need of an
explanation.
&dquo;Insiders&dquo; realize that Crossan here
employs
that
subgroup
of
anthropological
studies that since the 1960s is associated
with the Mediterranean. It is from studies in this area that
he derives
categories
like &dquo;honor and shame&dquo; and
&dquo;patron
and client.&dquo;
Moreover,
when Crossan
speaks
of
Jesus
as
&dquo;peasant&dquo;
he finds his models in modern
peasant
studies of
village
societies in Latin
America,
Africa and Asia. It be-
comes obvious that Crossan wants to write the
history of Je-
sus from a
non-elite,
a &dquo;from below&dquo;
perspective.
Crossan
obviously
wants to write the
history
of
Jesus
from a
non-elite,
a
&dquo;from below&dquo;
perspective.
With this
broadening
of
perspective
Crossan has wid-
ened the context of
Jesus activity
from Palestine to the
much
larger
Greco-Roman
world,
and he has widened the
context
of interpretation
from a
specific Jewish religious
tra-
dition to a much broader
picture
of life in the ancient Medi-
terranean world.
A Master Narrative about the
Empowerment
of
Peasants?
It follows from Crossans
methodological
choices that
the
&dquo;plot&dquo;
of the book is
phrased
in
general
terms rather
than in
specifically Judean
terms. Part One
(&dquo;Brokered
Em,
pire&dquo;)
describes life in the Greco-Roman world for &dquo;ordi-
nary people.&dquo;
Crossan introduces an
important
theme: how
did
people
react to a world that was
clearly unsatisfactory?
It
is in this context that the
Cynics
with their
emphasis
on
poverty
as freedom enter the scene. In Part Two
(&dquo;Embat-
146
tled
Brokerage&dquo;)
Crossans thematic
perspective
is a world
that
experiences
a crisis and
protests against existing pow-
ers. In this section of the book models from social anthro-
pology
are
put
to use in Crossans
description
of different
movements and various
types
of leaders:
e.g., peasant proph-
ets, bandits, magicians,
and
prophets.
Hebrew texts also
play a larger role,
as there is an
emphasis
on
apocalypticism
and different
types of Judean leaders:, e.g., prophets
and
Messiahs.
Horsleys
influence is evident in the
way
in which
Crossan is concerned with the economic and social con-
flicts within Palestine.
Part Three
(&dquo;Brokerless Kingdom&dquo;)
deals with
Jesus
answer to an
impossible question:
how are we to handle an
unacceptable present?
Crossan here combines a
large
amount
of material, especially
from social
anthropology
and
history.
Thus he can draw on a broad context when he
interprets
passages
central to
Jesus program
for a solution of the crisis:
miracles and a common meal. Crossan
depicts Jesus
as a
combination of miracle maker and
Cynic,
a
proclaimer
of
equality
and of a break with wealth and
exploitation.
In his
conflict with
patron-client
relations
Jesus
did not establish
himself as &dquo;middle man&dquo; or &dquo;broker.&dquo; Instead he comes from
the outside and is a herald. His
activity
with &dquo;miracles and
meals&dquo;
ought
to force
people
to make contact both with one
anotherand with God.
A brief
summary
that Crossan makes in his later book
WHO CRUCIFIED
JESUS? (1995)
shows the
large
extent to
which his
perspective really
is &dquo;from below.&dquo; Even
if Jesus
is
the main
protagonist
of the
book,
it is the
peasantry
who are
its real
subjects.
Crossan sums
up
a discussion of words ut-
tered when
Jesus
sends out
&dquo;disciples&dquo;:
&dquo;It is not a matter of
his
power,
but of their
empowerment.
He himself has no
monopoly
on the
Kingdom,
it is there for
anyone
with the
courage
to embrace it.&dquo; Even a
specific
role or intervention
of God for the
Kingdom
of God is not
granted:
It did not mean for
Jesus,
as it could for
others, the imminent
apocalyptic
intervention of God to set
right
a world taken over
by
evil and
injustice.
It meant the
presence
of Gods
Kingdom
here and now in the
reciprocity
of
open eating
and
open
heal-
ing,
in lives, that
is, of radical
egalitarianism
on both the
socio-economic
(eating)
and the
religio-political (healing)
levels
11995: 48, 491.
Crossans THE HISTORICAL
JESUS
leaves a number of
questions
unanswered. Some are
directly
related to his in-
terpretation
of
history.
Is the
relegation
of the
Judean
tradi-
tion to the
periphery justifiable?
Is
Jesus
as a
solitary Cynic
preacher
a
plausible
role model in Galilee in the first cen-
tury ?
But more serious are the
questions
that Crossans
method does not allow him to answer. The most
striking
ex-
ample
is his discussion of the reasons for the crucifixion of
Jesus.
Crossan thinks that the crucifixion is linked to
Jesus
symbolic
destruction of the
temple,
but this
hypothesis,
he
says,
cannot be
grounded
in his
methodology (i.e., satisfy
the
requirements
of
multiple
textual
attestation);
so it re-
mains a
&dquo;possibly unmethodological proposal&dquo; (1991: 360).
It
appears
that Crossan is here
retreating
to his
very
strict
methodology
for
evaluating
textual
evidence, which excludes
more
explicitly
historical
questions concerning
causes or
change,
and which therefore
may
be viewed as a
&dquo;postmodem&dquo;
way
of
writing history.
It should be
noticed, however, that
Crossan in his later works retreats from his
position
on this
particular question: &dquo;My
best historical reconstruction con-
cludes that what led
immediately
to
Jesus
arrest and
execution in
Jerusalem
at Passover was that act of
symbolic
destruction,
in deed and
word, against
the
Temple&dquo; (1995:
65).
Viewed in
light
of recent American
historiography,
Crossan is an even more
striking example
than
Horsley
of
the new social-cultural
history.
Crossan focuses on the
dominant
political,
social and economic structures of
op-
pression
and the
way
in which
marginalized groups
&dquo;had re-
sisted domination and maintained their own
group
identities&dquo;
(Ross: 665).
It was in this
way
that the &dquo;romantic
tendency&dquo;
in the master narrative of the national
history
of American
democracy
was
preserved,
but now limited to smaller so-
cial-cultural
groups.
Culture was an
important part
of
this,
because it was
part
of the
strength
of the
groups
and it made
it
possible
to attribute value to their
lives,
not
just portray
them as victims of
oppression.
We find all of these elements in Crossans
narrative,
al-
though presented
in a
way that,
rather than
clarifying
the
message,
confuses it with an overload of information. His
introductions to
anthropological literature,
often in the
form of
very long quotations, require
much
space
in several
chapters,
but
they
make
up
a collection of material more
than a focused
analytical presentation.
Crossan has chosen
a
literary
method and a form of
presentation
that
provides
ample space
for
synchronic pictures,
but not so much for
diachronic
questions
within the
history
of
Jesus.
Various
chapters
of the book
represent &dquo;synchronic samples&dquo;
in the
text
interpreted
in a context that overwhelms with its
great
wealth of historical material and
anthropological
models.
The form that Crossan has chosen is different from his-
tory
as
&dquo;story&dquo;
or &dquo;narrative.&dquo; It is rather a collection of sto-
ries or
fragments. My attempt
to make a
system
or to draw a
147
linear
development
between the various sections of the
book
may
be a result of a &dquo;traditional&dquo; historical search for
&dquo;cause&dquo; and &dquo;connection&dquo; and therefore
may
be at odds
with Crossans
presentation. Although
the title of his book
is
simply
THE HISTORICAL
JESUS,
and
although
he
presents
rigid
historical criticism, the book
appears
to
represent
a
postmodern approach
to
writing history.
Bruce J. Malina: Mediterranean Context
and a Pluralistic Master Narrative?
A
persistent
element in the master narrative of modern
historiography
is that of the autonomous individual
(Appleby
et al.:
387-88). &dquo;Progressive&dquo;
and Marxist historians at-
tacked this notion, as
Horsley points out, shifting
the em-
phasis
to
groups.
Cultural studies focused on &dquo;the other&dquo; as
different from
&dquo;me,&dquo;
thus
challenging
the
concept
of a &dquo;uni-
versal&dquo; human nature. With his
designation
of
Jesus
as a
&dquo;Mediterranean
Jewish peasant&dquo;
Crossan
attempts
to
por-
tray
him as &dquo;the other&dquo; in a different cultural context. But
neither Crossan nor
Horsley
has raised the central
question:
what do we mean when we ask what
type
of
person Jesus
was? What
type
of &dquo;self are we
looking
for? How do we con-
strue what we are
looking
for when we ask &dquo;who&dquo;
Jesus
was?
It seems to me that
raising
this
question
is the most
sig-
nificant contribution
by
Bruce
J.
Malina to recent studies of
the historical
Jesus.
THE SOCIAL WORLD OF
JESUS
AND THE
GOSPELS
(1996)
is a collection of articles that addresses
many
of the same issues as
postmodern
criticism.
They
are
especially
related to two of the most
important
master nar-
ratives of
modernity:
the autonomous human
subject
un-
derstood as the
singular individual, and the narrative of
progress. Criticizing
traditional
scholarship
for its
unspoken
agenda
of modern
assumptions,
Malina
argues
that the &dquo;re-
ceived view&dquo; in biblical
interpretation
is based on German
scholarship
and addresses
problems arising
out of the En-
lightenment,
industrialization and nationalism in
Germany
(217-41).
More
specifically,
Malina addresses the
assumption
of
the &dquo;fixed&dquo; individual as the focus of the human world that
underlies much biblical
scholarship.
One
part
of this as-
sumption
is an
understanding
of
language
as molded
by
the
individual to fit his or her
purpose.
Malina counters this
presupposition
in an
essay
on
reading theory
based on re-
cent studies in
sociolinguistics (3-31).
Individual words do
not &dquo;have&dquo;
meaning, they only
receive
meaning through
the
social
system
from which
they
come. This
corresponds
to
the
postmodernist
view in which
&dquo;words,
if
perceived
as
floating signs,
are rendered
meaningful only through
shared
usage through groups,
rather than mere isolated individu-
als&dquo;
(Appleby
et al.:
388).
Malinas intention, however,
is
uot to deconstruct
history,
but to write better
history.
He is
interested in
giving
modern readers better tools to read an-
cient texts with a view to their
&dquo;originally
intended mean-
ings.&dquo;
Readers must therefore become
acquainted
with &dquo;the
social
systems
available to the
original
audience&dquo;
(13).
Malinas focus is
upon
&dquo;social
systems.&dquo;
In
many
in-
stances that means social structures and
institutions,
but in
this book Malina is
primarily
interested in
discussing
the
mental and cultural
presuppositions
that
separate
the mod-
ern reader from the first audiences of the Second Testa-
ment
writings.
Several
essays
deal with &dquo;the
question
of the
first-century
Mediterranean
person.&dquo;
Malinas main
point
is
that instead of the individual who is at the center of modern
North American and North
European culture,
in Mediter-
ranean culture we find the
group-oriented person
who was
concerned with
family
and
kinship
and who saw
everything
in terms of
gender.
This
perspective
is
important
for Malinas discussion of
assumptions implied
in
scholarly presentations
of
Jesus.
Finding
in Webers
picture
of a charismatic leader an exam,
ple
of the Western idea of the
strong individual, Malina
criticizes Webers
&dquo;type&dquo;
of &dquo;charismatic leader&dquo; for
being
too individualistic
(123-42).
Such a leader is characterized
by
claims to
strong personal authority
and the
expected
re,
sponse
of
unquestioning loyalty
from his followers. But this
concept
of
personal authority
and
loyalty
fits neither the
cultural
expectations
of Palestinian
society
nor the sources
and their
descriptions
of
Jesus
and his followers. A
person
was
seen,
in that
age,
as embedded in a
group,
and he or she
was
expected
to be
responsive
to the norms of the culture.
Malina
argues, then,
that
&dquo;reputational authority&dquo;
based on
recognition
in
society
and without claims to
strong
author-
ity
for oneself
provides
a better
type.
Malina also holds that
especially
non-elite
Jews
had a
positive
attitude to &dquo;faction
leaders&dquo; who would
provide inspirational leadership (135).
In contrast to Webers
model, Malina sees
Jesus
as much
more
firmly
rooted in local structures and the
Jesus
move,
ment
primarily
as a reform movement within the
Judean
people (135-40).
Malinas criticism of the
concept
of &dquo;time&dquo; in Second
Testament
scholarship
is relevant to the discussion of
apoc,
alyptic
in the world of
Jesus.
He criticizes scholars for
being
influenced
by
modem
conceptions
of time that are oriented
toward the
future,
whereas ancient Mediterranean cultures
were
present-oriented (179-214).
This orientation toward
the future is central to the idea of
modernity.
The entire
conception
of time embraced
by modernity is,
in
fact,
new.
Time is now viewed as universal-the same for
every-
148
body-and (most important)
as related to
development.
As
a result nations and
periods
could be classified
according
to
their
degree
of modernization. Malinas criticism of biblical
scholars runs
parallel
to one that has also been raised
against
the
Enlightenment
and liberalism: their
positive
at-
titude towards
change
led to
expectations
of
improvements
in the
future,
with the result that the
past
and the
present
were
denigrated (Appleby
et al.:
9).
Malina addresses
many
of the same issues as
postmodern
criticism of traditional historical
scholarship.
He is
particu-
larly eager
to criticize the
presuppositions
of modern West-
erners that frame our
conceptual
world. But it seems to me
that
despite
their similarities Malina has a
very
different
purpose
from that of modern criticism. Malinas criticism is
more an attack on the cultural
hegemony
of the Western
mind than a
global
criticism of
interpretive paradigms. Malina,
moreover, preserves
an historical orientation. He is con-
cerned with the
&dquo;original&dquo; meaning
of
passages-the meaning
passages
had for their
&dquo;original&dquo;
hearers-and it is to
clarify
this
meaning
that he is concerned with Mediterranean con-
ceptions
and social structures. Since modern readers en-
counter the Bible as
&dquo;strangers,&dquo; they
must exert a
special
effort to enter into its
&dquo;strange&dquo;
world.
Criticism of traditional
interpretive paradigms by
Malina
and others in the Context
Group
is
not, therefore,
that of
postmodernism,
but rather one that
emerges
from a
concept
of culture and of social sciences associated
with, e.g.,
Clif-
ford Geertz and Thomas Kuhn
(Appleby
et al.:
259-64).
This criticism was directed at an
understanding
of &dquo;the
other&dquo; that resulted from Western colonization: the other
as
different from
and
inferior
to &dquo;us.&dquo; Decolonization
repre-
sented a
political
and also cultural
protest against
this
inferiority projected
onto &dquo;the other.&dquo; Social
anthropology
challenged
the
conception
of &dquo;Western man&dquo; as &dquo;universal
man&dquo; and studied instead the various
conceptions
of man
and woman and the
many
different social and cultural
forms of
organization
in human
society. Thus,
social an-
thropology
does not seek so much the universal as the
par-
ticular ;
it does not seek firm
laws, but
meaning.
But this
does not
necessarily imply
a relativist
position.
Common to
many
scholars in this
group
is the view that
meaning
is
&dquo;grounded
in an external
reality,
that we can
perceive,
how-
ever
imperfectly&dquo; (Appleby
et al.:
264).
I have used the discussion of
&dquo;person&dquo; by
Malina as a
particularly
useful
example
of
questions
raised
by
him and
other members of the Context
Group
as
they go
to the
very
center of the effort to reconstruct the historical
Jesus.
The
important thing
is not
necessarily
the answers that Malina
gives
to these
questions,
but rather his
very raising
of the
questions.
He is concerned with the
paradigms
of
interpre-
tation,
and it will
require many
detailed studies to test
them. One result of this is that it is difficult to discern in the
works
by
Malina and
by
other members of the Context
Group
a master narrative of the
type
found not
only
in the
works of &dquo;traditional&dquo; historians,
but also in
Horsley
and
Crossan. It
might
be that the
attempt
to establish a method-
ology
for a
study
of &dquo;the social world of
Jesus
and the Gos-
pels&dquo;
shares some of the situation of social-cultural
history
described
by
Ross
(667). Increasing
historical
sophistication
and
sensitivity
to each historical
subject
has led to the rec-
ognition
of
greater complexity
and
complicated
the idea of
an
overarching
master narrative. But I think it is
possible
to
see certain elements of a master narrative. The contrast be-
tween the &dquo;ancient world&dquo; and the &dquo;modern
[i.e. American]
world&dquo; is central to Malinas
scholarship
and to that of the
other members of the Cultural Context
Group.
The at-
tempt
to establish the &dquo;cultural context&dquo; of biblical narra-
tives within an ancient Mediterranean culture
represents
a
challenge
to
interpretations
based on
modern,
Western cul-
tural
presuppositions.
This
appears
at first to distance the
texts from the
present
Western world and to render their
message irrelevant,
but it is also
possible
to read this effort
to restore the biblical narratives to their cultural context in
positive terms,
as a
rejection
of the
hegemony
of Western
theology
and an
opening
to a much broader cultural
variety
in constructions of the historical
Jesus
as well as of christol-
ogy.
Not
only readings
based on Mediterranean
anthropol-
ogy,
but also
readings
from
many
other
contexts,
for instance
in
Africa., Asia and Latin America
may legitimately
chal-
lenge
the Western
paradigms.
Concluding
Reflections
What is at stake in a situation when we see so
many
dif-
ferent
pictures
of the historical
Jesus?
Some find in this a
problem
that threatens the
credibility
not
just
of historians
but of
Jesus
himself! I think that this
diversity
reflects the
same shift that we have observed in
writing history,
from an
hegemonic unity
to
diversity.
It is on this note that
Appleby,
Hunt,
and
Jacob (291-302)
conclude their discussion of
history
with some observations on American
history.
His-
tory, they point out, functions as the
memory
of a nation
and thus addresses the
question
of national
identity.
As an
example, they point
to the
growing
number of studies of
Afro-American
history,
often at a local level.
Although
such studies have been accused of
&dquo;trivializing&dquo;
the
&dquo;grand
epic&dquo;
of American
history, Appleby, Hunt,
and
Jacob argue
that the
question
is rather one of the relation between his-
149
tory
and
identity:
such studies
impoverish
the American
success
story by painting
it as the &dquo;one American
story.&dquo;
The
challenge
is therefore to write a multicultural
history
of
America.
Similarly,
I think that what is at stake in the debate on
the historical
Jesus
is the issue of &dquo;one Christian
(his) story,&dquo;
that is the thesis that there is a
continuity
in Christian his-
tory
from
Jesus
to the church of
today.
This thesis is
particu-
larly important
for the
identity
of the
church, or, rather,
for
those who
identify
themselves as the church and
speak
on
behalf of the church. It is this
immediate, unquestioned
identification that is threatened when the
paradigms
of his-
torical reconstruction of
Jesus
are altered. For
instance,
Bruce Malina
questions
the social and mental
categories
for
&dquo;person,&dquo; &dquo;self,&dquo; etc.,
that facilitate identification between
&dquo;then&dquo; and &dquo;now.&dquo;
Likewise,
a
change
in the frames of
interpretation
that
Horsley
and Crossan advocate
displaces
Christian
religious
tradition from its
privileged position
in a
framework of
interpretation
that
emphasizes &dquo;religion&dquo;
ver-
sus
&dquo;socio-political&dquo;
and &dquo;Christian&dquo; versus
&dquo;Judean&dquo; (this
last
dichotomy
is
challenged
also
by Sanders).
Crossan
moves the
perspective
from a Palestinian context to a Medi-
terranean one,
and both he and
Horsley emphasize
social
conflict as a framework of
understanding.
These alterna-
tives make
possible
several
identifications, especially
for the
poor
and the
oppressed,
that are not limited to
explicit
church contexts.
However,
these alternatives are all within
&dquo;his-story,&dquo;
and
important challenges
to this male-oriented
view of
history
has come from feminist scholars like Elisa-
beth Schiissler Fiorenza and Louise Schottroff.
All these authors
presuppose
a
reality
behind the
texts,
even if
they
are well aware that the texts are
ideological
constructions. There are few
examples
of more dramatic
consequences
of the
&dquo;linguistic
turn&dquo; in historical
writing
that
question
that texts about
Jesus
have a reference to real-
ity
that makes it
possible
to write about
Jesus
as an historical
person.
But the existence of
many
different frameworks of
interpretation
and new master narratives
may
serve as a
warning
to
speak,
not of &dquo;the historical
Jesus,&dquo;
but of &dquo;a his-
torical
Jesus.&dquo;
Note:I am
grateful
for discussions of this article at the
annual
meetings
of the Cultural Context
Group
and with
my
master
student,
Carl McAllister
during
his work on a
thesis on the historical
Jesus
in the works
by J.D.
Crossan
and E.P. Sanders.
Works Cited
Appleby, J.,
L.
Hunt,
and M.
Jacob.
1994. TELLING THE TRUTH
ABOUT HISTORY. New
York,
NY: W.W.Norton.
Appleby, J.
et al., eds. 1996. KNOWLEGDE AND POSTMODERNISM
IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE.
London, UK:
Routledge.
Bunzl,
Martin. 1997. REAL HISTORY. REFLECTIONS ON HISTOR-
ICAL PRACTICE.
London,
UK:
Routledge.
Crossan, John
D. 1995. WHO KILLED
JESUS?
San Fransisco:
Harper.
1991. THE HISTORICAL
JESUS.
THE LIFE OF A MEDITERRANEAN
JEWISH
PEASANT. San
Francisco, CA:
Harper.
Finley,
Moses I. 1986. ANCIENT HISTORY: EVIDENCE AND MODELS.
New York, NY:
Viking.
Fisichella, R. 1993. Review
of J.P.MEIER, A
MARGINAL
JEW,
BIBLICA
74:123-29.
Horsley,
Richard A.1995. GALILEE. HISTORY, POLITICS, PEOPLE.
Valley Forge,
PA:
Trinity
Press.
1993a.
JESUS
AND THE SPIRAL OF VIOLENCE.
Minneapolis:
Fortress.
1993b.
Liberating narrative, Pp.
164-69 in THE BIBLE AND
LIBERATION, edited
by
N. Gottwald and R.
Horsley. Mary-
knoll,
NY: Orbis Books.
Iggers, George
G. 1997. HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE TWENTIETH
CENTURY. Hanover:
Wesleyan University
Press.
Johnson,
Luke T. 1996. THE REAL
JESUS.
THE MISGUIDED
QUEST
FOR THE HISTORICAL
JESUS
AND THE TRUTH OF THE
TRADITIONAL GOSPELS. San Fransisco, CA:
Harper.
Malina,
Bruce
J.
1996. THE SOCIAL WORLD OF
JESUS
AND THE
GOSPELS. London, UK:
Routledge.
Meier, John
P. 1991ff. A MARGINAL
JEW. RETHINKING THE
HISTORICAL
JESUS.
New York, NY:
Doubleday.
Ross,
D. 1995. Grand Narrative in American Historical
Writing:
From Romance to
Uncertainty,
AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW
100: 651-77.
Sanders, E. P. 1993a. THE HISTORICAL FIGURE OF
JESUS.
London:
Penguin.
1993b. Jesus in Historical
Context, THEOLOGY TODAY 50: 429-48.
1985.
JESUS
AND
JUDAISM. Philadelphia,
PA: Fortress.
1977. PAUL AND PALESTINIAN
JUDAISM. London, UK: SCM.
Schillebeeckx,
E. 1979. JESUS.
AN EXPERIMENT IN CHRISTOLOGY.
New
York,
NY:
Seabury
Press.
Scott,
Bernhard B. 1994. From Reimarus to Crossan:
Stages
in a
Quest,
CURRENTS IN RESEARCH 2: 253-80.

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