The Origins of Christianity and the New Testament. Rebecca I. Denova
The ministry of Jesus; the reign of Pontius Pilate
Jesus, as far as we know, never wrote anything down. Nor, contrary to popular belief, did his disciples write anything down. The gospels were not written by anyone in Jesus’s immediate circle. When Jesus “called” these were mostly Galilean fishermen. What were the odds that they could write Greek? (We examine speculation on the writer of each gospel in the individual chapters.)
In relation to the historical events concerning the ministry and death of Jesus, we have no contemporary eyewitness evidence for those events. There are no Jewish records or Roman records. This is incredibly significant. And it takes a while to think about. Because the events in the life of Jesus are so central to Christianity, most moderns assume that “the whole world was watching.” This is particularly true when it comes to the crucifixion of Jesus. But there is no reason why this crucifixion would be noted, as Rome crucified thousands of Jews. This crucifixion was devastating to his immediate circle, but most other Jews would see him as just one more victim of Roman oppression.
The earliest historical “evidence” that we have concerning a movement centered on the teachings of Jesus is found in the letters of Paul, written between 50 and 60 ce. Again, it is difficult to rely on this material for details of the ministry because Paul himself was not a witness to events. He never met Jesus of Nazareth. Paul began his missions twenty to twenty-five years after the death of Jesus, but, as we will see, Paul was not interested in the “historical Jesus.” Paul’s central focus was on “the resurrected Christ” (Christos in Greek for the Hebrew term, “messiah”).
The gospels of the New Testament have no internal dates. There are no clues (such as definite events or known individuals) for us to precisely date them to the time of their writing. The complication is that they are all writing a story that occurred between roughly 26 and 36 ce, but from their point of view decades later.
To uncover the “logia” (the “words” of Jesus) and events reported in Mark, Kasemann’s work evolved into a series of “tests” that could be applied to the material:
Language The four gospels are written in Greek (the common language for government, education, and trade in the Eastern Empire). However, the tradition was that Jesus spoke Aramaic, a Semitic language from Syria that arose in the sixth century bce. It was adopted by Jews in the region of the Galilee and parts of Judea after the period known as “the Exile.” It shares many loan words with Hebrew and was also written in a form of Hebrew script.To determine if a saying of Jesus was original, scholars translated the Greek text of Mark into Aramaic. If it “worked,” meaning not just a word-for-word translation, but grammatically, syntax, etc., it did not prove that Jesus said it, but went into a pile as “perhaps.” On the other hand, if it could not be translated correctly, it was thrown out.Some scholars have now challenged this criterion as archaeology continues to provide more information on the region. Towns and cities in the first century were “mixed,” meaning that Jews and Gentiles lived side by side and shared many cultural elements, such as theaters and baths. Shared cultural elements indicates more than one language. In other words, as Jesus traveled around the Galilee in these “mixed cities,” would he have been bilingual?
Multiple-Attestation Multiple-Attestation as a test for Jesus sayings is often misunderstood. If a saying is “attested” (appears) in the four gospels, that does indicate four separate sources (and thus historical credibility). The other gospels used Mark as their source. Multiple-Attestation refers to a saying or deed of Jesus in the gospels that is found in another contemporary source or another New Testament document. Multiple-Attestation is rare and when scholars find it, it is a “gem” in the research. Two examples of this are in Mark and Paul. Mark says that Jesus taught against divorce. Paul (writing earlier) knows this tradition where he cites “the Lord” as having taught it. Paul also repeats a Eucharistic formula (“This is my body…”) that repeats Mark’s words almost verbatim.
Coherence This criterion is also known as that of “consistency.” If a saying of Jesus is already determined to be authentic, the material that “coheres” with the same concept or teaching can then be placed in the “probable” pile.
Dissimilarity This criterion can be somewhat confusing, as it originally had two elements. A centuries-long tradition in Christian theology taught that Jesus came into the world to undo a corrupted Judaism. “Dissimilarity” became the idea that any sayings of Jesus against the “Judaism of his day” therefore must be historical. At the same time, any sayings of Jesus that went against the earliest Christian communities (the “church”) must be part of an earlier, original tradition.This criterion of “dissimilarity” has fallen out of use, as it was based on scholarly nuances and a priori decisions on what was historical and what was not. Instead, it has become part of what is now deemed the criterion of “embarrassment.” For example, Mark reported that when John the Baptist was in the wilderness “baptizing a repentance for the forgiveness of sins,” Jesus came to him and was baptized. Did this mean that Jesus had sinned? No one after Mark repeated this line. According to the criterion of “embarrassment,” there must have been an early and well-known tradition that John had baptized Jesus. Each of the gospels “edits” the story to help explain this tradition. In other words, this story was not likely “created” by the writers.The second quest is also noteworthy for the application of new methods of literary criticism in various approaches to ancient texts (see Box I.1).
Box I.1 Scholarly approaches for the study of the Bible
“Criticism” sometimes implies negative judgment. In this sense, the original Greek concept is utilized. Krino, which means “to discern,” meant discerning the meaning behind the text. The process is known as “exegesis,” a fancy word for “analysis.” In the exegesis of Biblical passages, the analysis goes beyond the “spiritual meaning” of text. It is placed within its historical, cultural, and religious context. It is also useful in analyzing the compositional process of a text.
The different types of criticism are historical criticism (the historical context that gave rise to the passage); form criticism (the original unit before it was edited); literary criticism, in understanding the plot structure and the writer’s point of view; redaction criticism, a fancy phrase for “editing” that traces changes to the text over time; and rhetorical criticism (the art of persuasion or argument). Often several of these approaches are used simultaneously.
The Third Quest
Studying the historical context of the “Judaism of Jesus’ day” was enhanced through a major discovery. In 1947, an Arab shepherd boy discovered a jar of scrolls in one of the caves near the ruined site of an ancient community at Qumran on the shores of the Dead Sea. Known as the “Dead Sea Scrolls,” the manuscripts comprised the library of a sect of Jews understood to be the Essenes.
These Jews were an apocalyptic group who left Jerusalem c. 150 bce to await God’s final intervention. Initially, the hope was that the scrolls would mention Jesus. They do not, but they provide a window on an apocalyptic group in the first century. The library also contained other contemporary literature that did not make it into either