I had put J. D. Crossan in a kind of mental “bad liberal” box and so had mostly avoided reading him. (By which I mean I thought of him as someone whose project was strictly one of “debunking” traditional Christian claims.) But then I read Crossan and Marcus Borg’s The First Paul and liked it a lot! Oh no! Maybe Crossan’s not so bad after all! In retrospect, I think I have been overly influenced by L. T. Johnson’s The Real Jesus, which casts aspersions on the theological usefulness of “historical Jesus” research generally. I think Johnson makes some good points, but I think historical Jesus research has more relevance to faith than he allows. Which makes me wonder if there are other Crossan books I should read. Has anyone read his big historical Jesus book? Any thoughts?
Category: History
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Jesus and the end: what if he was “wrong”?
In my post on Marcus Borg’s view of Jesus and eschatology, I asserted that if Jesus did expect an imminent supernatural in-breaking of some sort, then he was wrong, a conclusion that would disconcert many Christians.
This might have been too categorical of a statement. In his book The Historical Christ and the Theological Jesus, historian Dale Allison offers one way of addressing the issue.
Allison’s book is an attempt to draw out some of the theological implications of his study of the historical Jesus. Unlike Borg, et al., Allison thinks that Jesus was a “milleniarian prophet” who expected some kind of eschatological event in the near future. (See pp. 92-95 of The Historical Christ for a summary of the evidence that leads Allison to affirm this conclusion.) Allison pointedly summarizes the issue:
It is not just that, as Matt. 24:36 = Mark 13:32 says, the Son had no knowledge of precisely when the end would come. It is rather that the Son expected and encouraged others to expect that all would wrap up soon, and yet run-of-the-mill history remains with us: Satan still goes to and fro upon the earth. (p. 96)
So it would seem that, if Allison is right, Jesus was wrong about the coming of the Kingdom. What does this mean for us?
Allison suggests that our
widespread dismay arises in part…from a failure to comprehend fully that eschatological language does not give us a preview of coming events but is rather, as the study of comparative religion teaches us, religious hope in mythological dress. Narratives about the unborn future are fictions, in the same way that narratives about the creation of the world are fictions. (p. 97)
Just as we don’t have to suppose that the creation narratives of Genesis happened “once upon a time” for them to have existential and theological meaning, we don’t have to see the eschatological language of the Bible as referring to historical events that will happen in the future (whether near or distant).
Rather, the language and symbols of eschatology point to God’s trans-historical consummation of all things beyond the reach of suffering, death, and decay and can act as a critique of the unjust and inequitable status quo as it falls short of God’s will.
Allison is quick to point out that this doesn’t mean that Jesus or his followers saw eschatological language in this way. It may well be they meant it “literally.” However, he also notes that there is a process of “de-mythologization” (even if not necessarily fully explicit) within the New Testament itself. For example, the eschatology of John’s gospel has often been described as a “realized” eschatology that downplays the apocalypticism of the synoptics.
The point here is that, even if Jesus was wrong about not only the date of the eschaton but also the nature of the language he used to refer to it, we needn’t see that language as lacking a referent. It refers to the intersection–equally possible at every historical moment, but more palpably felt in some–of the transcendent and the mundane and the promise that God will redeem the evils and sufferings of this world.
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Whose Jesus? Which eschatology?
(With apologies to Alasdair MacIntyre.)
I’m still reading Marcus Borg’s Jesus. In the scholarly arena, Borg is probably best known as a proponent of the “non-eschatological” or “non-apocalyptic” Jesus, and he addresses this controversy in chapter 9 of this book.
In Jesus, Borg offers a refinement of terminology. Instead of “non-eschatological” or “non-apocalyptic,” he now prefers to talk about “imminent eschatology” versus “participatory eschatology.”
Imminent eschatology refers to the perspective–pioneered by Johannes Weiss and Albert Schweitzer in the 20th century and long considered orthodoxy in Jesus studies–that Jesus’ central message was one of apocalyptic expectation. That is, he believed that God was about to act decisively to usher in the Kingdom in its fullness by means of a supernatural intervention (with Jesus himself as, in some sense, God’s instrument). The unavoidable implication of this view is that Jesus was wrong, since the Kingdom manifestly didn’t appear in 33 A.D.
Borg, in contrast, argues for participatory eschatology. That is, the Kingdom is what the world would look like if God’s will really had its way–the poor would be fed, the naked would be clothed, nation would no longer war against nation, and people’s hearts would be centered on God.
[The Kingdom] is God’s dream, God’s passion, God’s will, God’s promise, God’s intention for the earth. God’s utopia–the blessed place, the ideal state of affairs. (p. 252)
In Borg’s view, for Jesus the Kingdom was something that people were to participate in here and now by turning to God and being converted to the ways of compassion and resistance to injustice–ways that are at odds with much of the conventional wisdom of the world. “Participatory eschatology…means that Jesus called people to respond and participate in the coming of the kingdom” (p. 259). Applying the categories of Calvinist-Arminian debate, we might say that Borg’s view is a synergistic one, as opposed to the monergistic one of the apocalyptic school. Borg sees the Kingdom as a reality that is, in some sense, already present and which we are invited to participate in.
Borg’s main argument for this position has both a negative and a positive aspect:
– First, he doubts that the more apocalyptic statements attributed to Jesus actually go back to him; instead he thinks it more likely that they refer to the early church’s expectation of Jesus’ second coming–expectations that were stoked by the Resurrection.
– Second, he argues that a participatory eschatology makes better sense of a larger swath of the gospel material; specifically, much of what Borg characterizes as Jesus’ “wisdom teaching” seems irrelevant if he thought the end was imminent.
Obviously I’m in no position to judge the details of the historical argument–which Borg only summarizes in any event. However, I do wonder if there is a religious reason for preferring one view over the other.
On the one hand, many Christians would be uncomfortable with the idea that Jesus was mistaken about the coming of the Kingdom–particularly if it was as central to his vision and mission as the proponents of imminent eschatology would have it. Orthodoxy can live with a fallible Jesus (he is fully human, after all), but can it live with a Jesus who fundamentally missed the boat with regard to the central theme of his ministry?
On the other hand, a view like Borg’s implies–at least to the extent that the early church entertained apocalyptic expectations–that the early Christian community was mistaken about what Jesus meant. This implication can maybe be softened a bit by arguing (as Borg does) that it was the Resurrection experiences that created, or at least intensified, this expectation (not unreasonably if the general resurrection was associated with “end-times” thinking in Judaism). Nevertheless, there is a potentially embarassing Jesus-versus-the-church conclusion looming at the end of this train of thought.
I guess to the extent that we think the “historical Jesus” is important for the life of faith–and not all Christians are agreed about this–Borg’s Jesus and his participatory eschatology seems to have the greater relevance. However, I’m also left less than fully satisfied by his sketch of eschatology. While he insists that it is God’s dream for the earth that human beings participate in or collaborate with, he doesn’t seem to leave much room for God’s action outside of human effort. In particular, the Kingdom of God has usually been taken to entail not just a perfectly just society, but a transformed created order where not only injustice, but suffering, sickness, and death are no more. Can Borg’s participatory model make sense of this?
UPDATE: This post seems relevant.
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John Birch redivivus
In the New Yorker, historian Sean Wilentz notes the parallels between the ideology and tactics of the Glenn Beck-inspired tea party movement and the Cold War-era John Birch Society. The similarities extend even to drawing on some of the same crackpot conspiracy-mongering “scholarship.”
What I didn’t realize before reading this is that Woodrow Wilson has become the hate figure du jour among tea partiers. Now, I’m not a big fan of Wilson either, but that has more to do with his support of segregation, atrocious record on civil liberties, and the fact that he dragged the country into World War I than it does with the Federal Reserve or the progressive income tax.
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The historical Jesus as a norm of Christology
Over the weekend I read A. Roy Eckardt’s Reclaiming the Jesus of History: Christology Today. The book is more interesting than the title suggests; Eckardt writes in conversation not only with “historical Jesus” studies, but also with feminist theology, theology of religions, liberation theology, and particularly “post-Shoah” theology. His stated goal is to develop a Christology that maintains the distinctiveness of Christianity without adopting a triumphalist or supersessionist stance toward other traditions (preeminently Judaism).
In Eckardt’s view, the historical Jesus is indispensable for any viable Christology. This doesn’t mean that the content of Christology can be completely determined by historical study. Rather, Eckardt adopts what he calls a “Lockean” view of the matter, based on an analogy with John Locke’s position on the relationship between faith and reason. Locke’s view was that religious truth can be based on reason or go “beyond” reason, but it can’t contradict reason. Likewise, Eckardt says, theological truth can be based on history, or go “beyond” history, but it can’t contradict history.
What’s the practical upshot of this? Well, here’s a pertinent example. Since we know that the historical Jesus was a faithful Jew who never broke with the tradition of his ancestors, any Christology that would imply that God’s covenant with Israel has been nullified or superseded would be automatically suspect. The Jesus of history, in this view, provides a kind of negative criteria for judging theological constructions.
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The Crusades, Fox News edition
This would seem to tell you all you really need to know about Rodney Stark’s God’s Batallions: The Case for the Crusades:
Clearly this is not the politically correct version of the Crusades, and that is fine: there is little that was politically correct about the Crusades in the first place. The difficulty I have with Stark’s account is not that it is controversial and even confrontational, but that his conclusions are often grounded in outdated historical sources—many of the same sources responsible for creating the portrayal of backward, barbaric Muslims in the first place.
Stark concedes that his book is not based on his own exploration of the primary sources. He writes: “Many superb historians have devoted their careers to studying aspects of the Crusades. I am not one of them.” Instead, he describes himself a synthesizer of existing research. The curious thing is that much of the research he uses to refute the historical accounts of the past generation is itself over 30 years old. Does God’s Battalions, then, prove that the accounts of contemporary historians are wrong, or does it merely revisit and resurrect the scholarly accounts that gave rise to contemporary Crusades historiography in the first place?
If you’re writing as a popularizer or a synthesizer, you’re conceding that you don’t have first-hand expertise in the subject matter. All the more important, then, to rely on state-of-the-art scholarship. Unless, that is, your goal is to grind a particular ideological axe.
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Independence runs in the family
This is neat: five of America’s greatest 19th-century writers–Melville, Thoreau, Emerson, Longfellow, and Hawthorne–had grandfathers who were involved in the revolution.
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Emancipation Day
D.C. observes April 16th as Emancipation Day. From Wikipedia:
On that day in 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Compensated Emancipation Act for the release of certain persons held to service or labor in the District of Columbia. The Act freed about 3,100 enslaved persons in the District of Columbia nine months before President Lincoln issued his famous Emancipation Proclamation. The District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act represents the only example of compensation by the federal government to former owners of emancipated slaves.
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The rehabilitation of U.S. Grant
Interesting review of a new biography of Ulysses S. Grant from historian Sean Wilentz. At the time of his death, and for quite a while thereafter, President Grant was among the most revered men in the nation. But his reputation took a sharp turn downward, in part, according to Wilentz, because of the rising school of pro-Southern “revisionist” Civil War history, which flourished during the early part of the 20th century. Wilentz argues that it’s high time for a rehabilitation. Particularly interesting is the way, in Wilentz’s telling, Grant’s reputation fluctuated according to the political currents of the time (he was a Northern imperialist to “Lost Cause” Southern apologists, a white, racist imperialist to the 60s New Left, etc.).
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Baillie on the problem of the historical Jesus
In light of some of the reading I’ve doing lately on the historical Jesus, I decided to re-visit D.M. Baillie’s God Was In Christ, which was published around the middle of the last century and addressed the then-current controversy about the relationship between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith. It holds up remarkably well, largely because the basic positions haven’t changed all that much. On the one hand, “liberals” appeal to the Jesus of history against the Christ of ecclesial tradition; on the other, “confessionalists” (we might now add postmodernists, Radical Orthodox, etc.) uphold the tradition of the church against “secular” historicism. Baillie (wisely, in my view) rejects both extremes. Turns out that I wrote a long post on his argument a couple of years ago, which is here if you’re interested.
A Thinking Reed 