Jesus, the Unprecedented Human Being. Giosuè Ghisalberti

      Contents

      Introduction Hermeneutics of the Gospels

      1 The Virgin Birth

      2 Children

      3 Families

      4 The Son of Man

       5 Nature

       6 History

       7 Death

       8 The Resurrection

       Bibliography

       Introduction Hermeneutics of the Gospels

      As the gospel writers each begin their account, for their present and for a future posterity they cannot possibly anticipate or imagine, they are burdened with an almost overwhelming responsibility of representing events in the life of Jesus (his acts and his words) and to make him present to their readers despite being separated both from the man himself and the sources available to them. With compelling motivations, and recognizing the fragility of their communities and the hostility of the social world around them, the writers of the gospels attempt to portray Jesus as someone who comes into the world to be an inauguration and to begin to actualize in being what has remained, until him, inconceivable. However, despite sensing Jesus’ dynamic ability to initiate such a possibility for the first time since creation, from out of himself in the fullness of his human presence, they always return him to a prior scriptural history. They need to give him an origin in a three-part tradition announcing him from the past and thereby making him legitimate, with the most authoritative credentials related to Abraham the patriarch, David the king, and the prophets as world-historical individuals. Each writer distinguishes himself from all oral traditions because their gospel is now permanent. They avoid the discrepancy of word-of-mouth versions by creating what they believe to be two related and complementary historical events, each with a source and chronology: the life of Jesus as previously handed down by oral testimonies and, perhaps, by one or more documents – the hypothetical Q, German for Quelle or “source,” and with Mark serving both Matthew and Luke as is commonly thought – and a prophet such as Isaiah, for example, who is interpreted to have announced Jesus’ future coming and will now be a fulfillment of a historical aspiration. Despite their individual reasons for setting down their version of events in the life of Jesus, the gospel writers are at every turn confronted with a difficult situation. The complications are extreme and without resolution.

After repeated readings of their sources, making selections and decisions, each of them begins under significant pressure. The permanence of the writing had to be intimidating, more so if certain alterations were made, changes they believed to be necessary. They individually decide on a starting-point, with a reading that will move, with some uncertainty – or rather, with both deliberation and hesitation – between the available document(s) on the life of Jesus, the testimonies of “eyewitnesses,” (Luke 1:2) and a continuous reference to utterances made in the past, with direct and precise quotations. For example, “when Mark ←9 | 10→is internal to the story and intrudes his own judgment upon what people felt,” Best tells us, “he does so in order to interpret the events he reports.”¹ Dodd goes further. “All four gospels alike have the character of fact plus interpretation.”² The reader of the gospels, alone and independently, can no longer simply accept the interpretations without being attentive during the times other textual references are relied upon for support, most especially when Jesus identifies himself from out of a prophecy, as in Luke 4:16 when reading the scroll of Isaiah in the synagogue. “It is especially crucial to state that the story of Jesus itself has led the author to the Old Testament looking for an explanation, rather than the story being generated out of Old Testament quotations.”³ The “explanation” may, in principle, be imposed, the narrative relation little more than tenuous.