How Do We Know About Jesus: Two Visions

I took a few minutes the other day to check out Nicola's books and was glad I did. It turns out that they have the best religious book section in Ann Arbor (IMHO)...better than Borders, better than Barnes and Noble, even better than Christian Crossroads (which is quite sad when you think about it). Instead of having the latest and greatest froth, they seemed to have a nice selection from across the spectrum of beliefs. I even found a copy of The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions by Marcus Borg and NT Wright. Since Donnell was complaining about his lack of a discussion partner for this, and since Borg is coming to Ann Arbor in a couple of weeks, I bought it. I should be finishing Jeremiah tonight for VLI, but couldn't resist the call of a new book (I hope you're happy Donnell).

The first couplet of chapters is about how we know about Jesus (the format of the book is that two authors each write a chapter on the same topic, alternating who goes first). Borg started this one, and as Donnell pointed out

"Dr. Borg's vision of Jesus is very intriguing...[Borg] defines an argument called 'History Metaphorized' as 'the use of metaphorical language and metaphorical narratives to express the meaning of the story of Jesus.' ...[and] casts doubt on the 'historical' events and activities attributed to Jesus, and at the same time he affirms the importance of 'nonhistorical material.' "

Both authors, Borg and Wright, speak of growing up with similar worldviews in which faith was accepted uncritically while still holding an essentially modern view of the universe as a closed system, what Francis Schaeffer refers to as a “two-story” perspective where “faith” is held separate from “reason.” Borg faced a crisis when confronted with the tension between his secular modern view and his faith, which explained the miraculous events of the Bible by thinking of Jesus as “more divine than human … as having the mind and power of God.” The problem, he explains was “I lost the historical Jesus as a credible human being…Because he is more than human, he is not fully human.” Borg resolves this in a creative way by postulating a pre-Easter Jesus and post-Easter Jesus, both important but quite distinct individuals.

I can see his point. I can’t relate to a “superman” Jesus.

But what if there was a way to explain the Jesus in the Gospels without reducing his humanness? What if the problem was not in the historical presentation of Jesus in the gospels, but in Borg’s earlier, admittedly pre-critical interpretation of what he read? What if the gospels don’t, after all, actually present Jesus as “having the mind and power of God”? (Which is not to say that they don’t present Jesus as divine, but rather that our definition of what it meant for him to be fully human and fully divine is colored by layer upon layer of doctrinal assertions, all posited in good faith, but done so without the benefit of the rich historical perspective we now have.) What if being divine meant that the “historical Jesus” is instead the perfect example of what humans were intended by God to be. Isn’t this in line with Paul’s reference to Jesus as both the “the image of the invisible God, the first born over all creation” (Col 1:15) and the “second Adam” (so to speak) who brings life where the first Adam brought death (Romans 5)? It seems to me that in his attempt to preserve the humanity of Jesus, Borg has instead posited a picture of humanity which is far more limited than God intended us to be. Yes, today the perfection of Jesus's example is unattainable, but some day "when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." (1 John 3:2b)

On to Wright's chapter. Where as Borg regularly makes sweeping assertions about what is and isn’t historical about the story we have of Jesus in the gospels, based primarily it would seem on the majority of opinion of scholars, Wright couches his arguments in carefully crafted discussions, attempting to eliminate our many presuppositions about what things mean by addressing each major stream of opinion in turn, in light of historical methods of inquiry.

To Wright the major question is: “why did Christianity begin, and why did it take the shape it did?” From Wright’s perspective Borg’s gulf might need to be bridged. Or it might not exist at all. To even posit such a gulf in the beginning is to necessarily color the investigation…

“I do not know in advance…that a considerable gulf exists between Jesus as he was (the “pre-Easter Jesus,” in Marcus [Borg’s] language) and Jesus as the church came to know him and speak of him (the “post-Easter Jesus”). We might eventually wish to reach some such conclusion; we cannot build it into our historical method." [emphasis added]

There has never been a time in history when we knew so much about the past and this is especially true regarding Biblical history. Couple this with the postmodern penchant to puncture past controlling meta-narratives and we find ourselves in a unique position to reevaluate the conclusions of past historians and priests alike. As Wright puts it:

History, then, prevents faith becoming fantasy. Faith prevents history becoming mere antiquarianism. Historical research, being always provisional, cannot ultimately veto faith, though it can pose hard questions that faith, in order to retain its integrity precisely as Christian faith, must struggle to answer, and may well grow strong through answering. Faith, being subject to the vagaries of personality and culture, cannot veto the historical enterprise (it can’t simply say “I don’t like the Jesus you write about, so you must be wrong”), but it can put hard questions to history, not least on the large topic of the origins of Christianity, and history may be all the better for trying to answer them.

Back to Jeremiah….