A Conversation with Walter Hixson on, The "Real" Jesus of Nazareth (original) (raw)

The Historical Jesus ? T&T Clark, 2008

In conformity with the appropriate method, the study proceeds through four chapters of unequal length. 1. The chosen starting point is the present Eucharist. It is as far as possible from the historical Jesus, but at the same time it is the most real element of Christianity: a presence of Jesus Christ and the formation of a community through the fulfilment of a certain Scripture, here and now. This evidently involves a vision of the human being, which it is necessary to clarify. In addition, it is a matter of an institution, that is to say precisely of a structure or of a model, which brings together by agreement a group of elements in which Scripture holds a privileged place. These elements will subsequently be explained in detail one by one, and then analyzed by going back in time. 2. At the other extremity are found the rather remote Jewish realities that surrounded Jesus in the first century, for which the work of Flavius Josephus constitutes a first-rate source. They are gathered together under two headings: first the sacred library, which was not at all at that time an archive rigidly set for centuries, but a still fluid collection with flexible contours; then Galilee, a small rural province with strong Pharisaic and Babylonian ties, as distrustful of Rome as of Jerusalem. 3. Between the two preceding poles appear the four canonical gospels that effectively resist all attempts at harmonization. In order to gauge the gap between the historical Jesus and the Christ that was later preached, they are first examined from a limited angle, by seeking to determine how the disciples became apostles. The conclusion that emerges is that the Gospel of John is the most Jewish and that of Mark to be the least useful in assessing the original milieu, which makes it necessary to reconsider certain current theories on the formation of the Gospels. 4. After these points as well as some others on the way the New Testament is used, to which other sources can be added, we finally reach the life of Jesus. We begin with the elements essential for the confession of the Christian faith (origin, baptism and passion of Jesus), and deal only at the end with his activity and his teaching, on which the Epistles and the Credo are remarkably silent. The conclusion is very modest, but precise: if we remain hesitant or ignorant in regard to the material details of many of the facts, we see on the contrary very well – and this is the essential – how they escaped being forgotten, that is to say how they have given rise to a word, because they have been understood, memorized and especially transmitted. Taken in a very broad sense, the fulfilment of Scripture has played – and still plays – an essential role. Abraham gives us this to understand in the parable of the rich man and the poor Lazarus (Luke. 16:31): “If they do not listen to Moses or the Prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.” There are finally two Appendices. The first proposes a collection of non-biblical texts that help in being more specific about the silhouette of Jesus and of his circle. The second provides elements of a French bibliography; in fact, to lighten the presentation, all annotation has been omitted and the technical discussions have been reduced to a minimum, but most of the considerations and the options presented here have been studied and justified in more detail elsewhere; it is fair to add that many are subject to controversy. The chosen starting point indicates clearly that nothing can be demonstrated more geometrico. It is a matter first of all of reflections of a believer for believers. In regard to non-believers or of “misinformed-believers,” the only really useful Christian apologetic is a mixture of testimony and announcement of the Gospel, which moreover necessarily gives rise to objections. Even if it has long been asserted – and Paul recalls this – that the human being has the natural capacity to know God, it is evident that a positive mind can declare, in good faith and with good arguments, that Christianity is a deception, or at least an illusion. Such a one should congratulate herself/himself, since the Christian language offers its services, like a parable; it honours the demands of reason, but it cannot be imposed for fear of reducing the Gospel to a theorem, namely a cultural fact to master.

The Historical Jesus: Investigating the unthinkable

A question important to Christology today is one that, potentially, could spell the end of Christianity as we know it. Did the historical Jesus exist? Was there a man called Jesus who lived in 1st century Palestine, preached a unique message of compassion and love, gathered a following of faithful disciples, was arrested and then later crucified by Roman authorities. Is this so called Jesus of history genuine and easily supported by historical evidence? The purpose of this study is to look at the available evidence, both biblical and non-biblical, presenting original manuscripts, commentary and current scholarship. What does come through strongly is the inability to make a water tight case for the existence of an historical Jesus. Furthermore, the possibility that the Jesus story may be a reworking of ancient pagan mythologies is particularly challenging.

From Akhenaten to Moses and Jesus: The Quest for Historical Jesus

This essay is based on two groundbreaking books, which are, in my opinion, bold attempts of their respective authors to clear ‘the mist of time’ we find in the Old and New Testaments. One is Sigmund Feud’s Mosses and Monotheism, from 1939, which is known more to the various theologian critics and the apologetics entrenched in the Old and New Testaments, then general public. Even, such great author as Erich Fromm criticized Freud book as his the weakest work. Freud was totally unmoved and gave his historical view of the major Jewish prophet Moses as the Egyptian. One can only imagine shock-waves the book sent to the Bible aficionados in the Jewish and the Christian camps on the eve of The Second World War. Freud’s profound knowledge of the history and the character traits gave Moses in his book distinctive human characteristics, not only a ‘shine face’ covered with a cloth after collecting the Commandments. Freud was at the same time one of the few who was capable to give us insight into inferno opened by the German racists’ in1933. The second book is Robert Eisenman’s James, The Brother of Jesus. Eisenman gives a real background of the person we learn to call Jesus comparing him with his brother James the Just, the true leader of the Jerusalem early Church, after the death of his more famous brother. James has been systematically and deliberately downplayed or written out of tradition. Once the New Testament reached its final form, the process of James’ marginalization became more unconscious and inadvertent but, in all events, it was one of the most successful rewrite – or overwrite – enterprises ever accomplished.

Controversy, Mythicism, and the Historical Jesus

While the New Testament offers the most extensive evidence for the existence of the historical Jesus, the writings are subject to a number of conditions that have dictated both the form and content of the traditions they have preserved. These conditions did not disappear with the writing of the first gospel, nor even with the eventual formation of the New Testament canon. They were expressly addressed by Christian writers in the second and third century who saw an incipient mythicism as a threat to the integrity of the message about Jesus. The history of this controversy is long, complex, and decisive with respect to the -question‖ of Jesus.