The Historical Jesus with Dr Dale Martin (2021-11-16) ​

0:00:02 hello everyone and welcome to blogging
0:00:04 theology and i'm very privileged to have
0:00:07 back professor dale martin of yale
0:00:10 university who has been teaching or has
0:00:12 taught there for
0:00:13 several decades perhaps even 30 years
0:00:15 and
0:00:16 he has been on several times before and
0:00:18 today we're very very fortunate indeed
0:00:21 uh dale has come back to talk
0:00:23 about the historical jesus
0:00:26 uh what we can know about this person uh
0:00:29 historically
0:00:31 what are the sources what are the
0:00:33 methodologies that historians use to uh
0:00:36 discover the historical facts about
0:00:39 jesus of nazareth so um by way of just
0:00:42 opening this up further dale if i may
0:00:44 i'm going to quote a sentence from
0:00:47 your book which is entitled new
0:00:50 testament history and literature and you
0:00:53 write there on page 180
0:00:56 the new testament is simply not a
0:00:58 reliable source for the history of jesus
0:01:01 or early christianity
0:01:03 when taken at face value
0:01:07 it's a page 180. so that's quite a
0:01:09 provocative statement for many people i
0:01:11 think to hear
0:01:12 could you perhaps explain um in more
0:01:15 detail why this is the case for you as
0:01:17 an historian and how historians can
0:01:20 discover the historical facts about
0:01:22 jesus if at all
0:01:25 the the case for why
0:01:27 the
0:01:29 new testament
0:01:30 is not reliable as a straightforward
0:01:33 historical source is simply that it
0:01:34 contradicts itself too much
0:01:36 uh you can go with
0:01:38 tons of examples one of the most glaring
0:01:40 is that according to the gospel of
0:01:42 matthew
0:01:43 uh jesus is born in bethlehem because
0:01:46 that's where his hometown is his parents
0:01:48 just live there that's mary
0:01:50 mary's hometown
0:01:52 and
0:01:53 he's born uh in a regular kind of place
0:01:57 um
0:01:59 according to luke
0:02:01 his family resides in galilee that's
0:02:03 their home
0:02:04 area and
0:02:06 they go down to bethlehem in order to
0:02:09 register for a census
0:02:11 um now the very fact that
0:02:13 luke makes up this roman census is
0:02:16 historically important because it never
0:02:17 happened there's no record anywhere else
0:02:19 in the world of uh the romans commanding
0:02:23 everybody to go back to a hometown to be
0:02:26 counted in a census much less a hometown
0:02:28 that their ancestors hadn't lived in for
0:02:31 a thousand years
0:02:33 as they went back to bethlehem because
0:02:35 that was david's town jesus is the son
0:02:37 of david well david ruled in around 1000
0:02:40 bce so
0:02:43 i one thing i asked my students all the
0:02:45 time and i say if you in order to enroll
0:02:48 for a united states a census if you had
0:02:50 to go back to where one of your
0:02:52 ancestors lived
0:02:54 a thousand years ago where would you go
0:02:57 and of course they don't know uh most of
0:02:59 the time and they might pick one
0:03:01 ancestor but it might not be the
0:03:02 ancestor that the romans wanted or
0:03:04 something like that so
0:03:05 um luke and matthew both have jesus born
0:03:08 in bethlehem
0:03:10 but they get him there in entirely
0:03:12 different ways and then of course you
0:03:14 have many other differences in luke you
0:03:16 have shepherds in matthew you don't have
0:03:18 shepherds you have kings uh bearing
0:03:22 gifts uh you have uh you know you have
0:03:25 the
0:03:26 slaughter of the innocents by king herod
0:03:28 in matthew no mention of that in luke at
0:03:31 all and then if you go to
0:03:33 mark and john
0:03:35 they seem to simply assume that jesus is
0:03:37 from galilee they don't make any bones
0:03:39 about uh trying to get him to bethlehem
0:03:42 so getting his family to bethlehem in
0:03:44 some way by matthew and luke
0:03:46 is clear from even the way they
0:03:47 introduce it they say in order to
0:03:49 fulfill prophecy so they're saying jesus
0:03:53 was born in bethlehem because that's
0:03:54 what they believe
0:03:56 the hebrew scriptures prophesied
0:03:59 that's just one instance the trial of
0:04:01 jesus is also
0:04:03 very different in the four different
0:04:06 canonical gospels uh different things
0:04:08 happen in in the trial uh different
0:04:11 things happen in different order
0:04:12 um and so you
0:04:15 the other thing is it's clear from even
0:04:16 their own narratives that the disciples
0:04:18 of jesus weren't present at his trial
0:04:21 and the romans would not have brought
0:04:23 them in they didn't have like a gallery
0:04:25 where why would that have been though
0:04:27 why would uh lower class galilean
0:04:29 peasants not have been permitted to
0:04:31 enter into a trial assuming it even took
0:04:33 place
0:04:35 it didn't happen in a public court as we
0:04:37 imagined today it happened in the
0:04:39 private offices of pilot um
0:04:42 and so you know you you can't just walk
0:04:44 in the offices of pilots
0:04:47 at the time not even high-class jews
0:04:49 would have been able to do so unless
0:04:51 they were very close to pilot but
0:04:54 certainly a bunch of ragtag fishermen
0:04:56 from uh galilee
0:04:58 could not have attended the trial of
0:05:00 jesus and then they even say that when
0:05:03 jesus was arrested they all scattered
0:05:05 right and some of the gospels try to
0:05:07 have the women uh close to jesus the
0:05:10 gospel of john tries to have peter in
0:05:12 the garden
0:05:13 of pilate uh so maybe he could have
0:05:16 overheard something but this is these
0:05:18 are clearly made-up uh
0:05:21 stories meant to
0:05:23 illustrate uh how the disciples
0:05:26 could
0:05:27 quote what pilate said and what jesus
0:05:29 said at this trial but even then they
0:05:31 don't quote it the same the four gospels
0:05:34 have you know some of the gospels have
0:05:36 jesus like the gospel of mark because
0:05:37 jesus being
0:05:38 completely numb uh dumb
0:05:41 no talking at all basically except for
0:05:43 one statement or so
0:05:45 but in the gospel of john he carries on
0:05:47 a you know chapter long conversation
0:05:50 with pilate about what is the nature of
0:05:52 truth
0:05:53 um he sounds sounds like a philosopher
0:05:55 you know instructing one of his students
0:05:58 so
0:05:59 nobody knew what happened to the trial
0:06:01 of jesus
0:06:02 except pilate um and he wasn't talking
0:06:05 uh in the first century about this
0:06:08 uh so uh
0:06:10 of course then we even have uh
0:06:12 pseudonymous
0:06:14 writings that are in written in the name
0:06:16 of pilate and he it wasn't they weren't
0:06:18 by pilate they were written much later
0:06:20 by christians
0:06:21 and they they kind of give what pilate's
0:06:24 version would have been of the trial and
0:06:26 how he regretted doing it he then he was
0:06:28 visited by nightmares and then he only
0:06:31 confessed jesus and became a christian
0:06:32 himself and in some christian churches
0:06:35 you had therefore saint pilate
0:06:37 uh you had pilate becoming a christian
0:06:39 saint but these this happened centuries
0:06:42 after the first century
0:06:44 i don't get that is why was there a
0:06:46 trial anyway because were the romans
0:06:48 typically in the habit of having public
0:06:50 courts and trials of
0:06:52 you know uh outlaws and peasants you
0:06:55 know who were not roman citizens i mean
0:06:57 didn't believe in the american due
0:06:59 process but was ancient rome like
0:07:01 america today no the romans would have
0:07:03 not would have needed no trial and they
0:07:06 almost never did when they crucified
0:07:07 someone
0:07:08 you know the army simply captured uh
0:07:11 what they called brigands um latronus or
0:07:14 something like that in the latin and
0:07:16 these were they just said these are kind
0:07:18 of robber uh people they're
0:07:20 they're rebels yeah they're rebelling
0:07:21 against roman power but they're doing it
0:07:23 mainly for money they're just trying to
0:07:25 steal from people and
0:07:26 and so the romans would just send out
0:07:29 you know a cavalry or a group of
0:07:30 soldiers and then just grab somebody or
0:07:33 a group of people the romans were known
0:07:35 for
0:07:36 crucifying hundreds of people at a time
0:07:39 without trouble presumably without
0:07:40 trouble
0:07:42 no so there would be no reason to have a
0:07:44 trial it had been historically extremely
0:07:46 implausible anyway to have a trial of
0:07:48 jesus given who he was uh anyway it's
0:07:50 not like standard
0:07:52 but there are lots and lots of other
0:07:53 examples that are just glaringly obvious
0:07:55 to a historian for example in matthew
0:07:58 mark and luke who all
0:08:00 matthew and luke knew the gospel of mark
0:08:03 and they fashioned their gospels on the
0:08:04 gospel of mark
0:08:06 and mark and matthew and luke therefore
0:08:08 all have jesus spent basically his
0:08:11 entire ministry in galilee and he only
0:08:14 travels to jerusalem the last week of
0:08:16 his life
0:08:17 with famously the palm sunday happening
0:08:20 a week before easter sunday
0:08:22 because that's when supposedly jesus
0:08:24 entered jerusalem and the people waved
0:08:25 their palms
0:08:27 it's not that way at all in the gospel
0:08:28 of john the gospel of john has jesus
0:08:30 going back and forth from galilee to
0:08:32 jerusalem back to galilee to jerusalem
0:08:35 starting with chapter four of the gospel
0:08:38 of john
0:08:39 so
0:08:40 you know which do you believe you can't
0:08:42 you can't believe both of them are
0:08:43 historically
0:08:45 accurate data
0:08:46 and so uh
0:08:48 when you get around to saying okay what
0:08:50 do we believe about where most of
0:08:51 jesus's ministry took place
0:08:53 most of us his critical scholars would
0:08:55 say well it took place in galilee
0:08:58 uh and yet he was crucified we believe
0:09:02 and probably in rome right outside the
0:09:05 city of rome so somehow he went to rome
0:09:07 and then we have to explain why did he
0:09:09 go to rome
0:09:10 right toward the end of what was going
0:09:12 to be the end of his life
0:09:15 okay so what are these the uh the the
0:09:18 sources that historians do use i mean
0:09:20 are there any reliable sources at all do
0:09:23 they how do they go about the business
0:09:24 of investigating historical jesus
0:09:27 this has been controversial recently
0:09:29 because
0:09:30 uh some people have tried to make a big
0:09:33 case and it gets some kind of sensation
0:09:35 in the press you know in the new york
0:09:36 times or something like that when some
0:09:38 scholar
0:09:39 and it's usually it's almost never a
0:09:42 recognized reputable historical scholar
0:09:45 of religion or the bible it's usually
0:09:48 somebody who may be a scholar of some
0:09:50 other field
0:09:52 and they say oh well we believe now that
0:09:55 the newly rediscovered uh gospel of
0:09:57 judas
0:09:58 um
0:09:59 where jesus says the words my wife
0:10:03 and of course some people made a big
0:10:05 deal of that and say well jesus was
0:10:07 married this is evidence that jesus was
0:10:09 married
0:10:10 uh some scholars say that the gospel of
0:10:12 mary
0:10:13 or the gospel of peter which we have
0:10:15 fragments of um which recounts mainly
0:10:18 just the death of jesus and his
0:10:20 resurrection in a very striking way and
0:10:22 some scholars have tried to say oh you
0:10:24 know these were the gospels that were
0:10:26 suppressed by the church
0:10:28 it's the holy roman catholic church
0:10:30 that's a big villain in a lot of these
0:10:32 things they say the church
0:10:34 suppressed these gospels because they
0:10:36 knew they had better reliable
0:10:38 information about jesus than did the
0:10:41 four gospels of the bible
0:10:44 but that that's really not a defensible
0:10:47 historical argument
0:10:49 you can tell just by reading i could
0:10:51 read some of these gospels to my college
0:10:53 students who had no background education
0:10:55 in historiography or the history of the
0:10:58 new testament for example there are
0:11:00 letters between
0:11:01 um jesus and the roman philosopher
0:11:04 seneca
0:11:06 and which they complement each other or
0:11:07 you know
0:11:08 are not synagogue jesus and king agbar
0:11:11 the
0:11:12 king at the time i think it was paul and
0:11:14 seneca was it dim paul write letters to
0:11:15 seneca paul's are the relatives to sin
0:11:19 so i must spoke there it was jesus and
0:11:21 and the king who yeah back and forth
0:11:23 and you know the king is saying i hear
0:11:26 of many things of you in the in the many
0:11:28 writings that i read and then he kind of
0:11:30 quotes the gospel of john
0:11:32 as if you know the king there uh living
0:11:35 in his kingdom outside of palestine had
0:11:38 a copy of the gospel of john in front of
0:11:39 him
0:11:41 and my students can even say oh there
0:11:43 whoever wrote this is just quoting from
0:11:44 the bible so it's obviously not an
0:11:46 independent historical source from the
0:11:48 bible
0:11:49 so uh there are a lot of those kinds of
0:11:51 things my position has always been that
0:11:54 the most reliable sources we have in
0:11:56 fact the only reliable sources we have
0:11:59 even though as i said they can't be
0:12:00 taken straightforwardly as history but
0:12:02 they do have i think historical tidbits
0:12:05 in them
0:12:06 that can be
0:12:07 used to construct a historical jesus
0:12:11 are matthew mark luke and john from the
0:12:13 new testament
0:12:15 the gospel of thomas which i think is
0:12:18 probably somewhat independent from those
0:12:20 gospels
0:12:21 and but it's also not a gospel of the
0:12:23 life of jesus it's it's a gospel full of
0:12:26 sayings
0:12:28 yeah
0:12:29 and so
0:12:30 yeah
0:12:31 so i think those five gospels are the
0:12:34 only gospels that really are usable for
0:12:37 historical purposes for the history
0:12:38 history of jesus and i would include
0:12:40 then the seven authentic
0:12:42 letters of paul
0:12:44 uh not all 13 letters of paul in the new
0:12:47 testament but the seven of paul that
0:12:50 critical scholars have decided paul
0:12:52 actually wrote paul didn't know jesus
0:12:55 uh in his lifetime paul never saw jesus
0:12:57 except if you believe like paul believed
0:13:00 that he saw jesus and visions that jesus
0:13:02 appeared to him in visions
0:13:04 but paul was not hanging around jesus in
0:13:06 this lifetime
0:13:07 but uh paul has obviously inherited from
0:13:11 other disciples before him some sayings
0:13:13 of jesus
0:13:14 and so and for example the most obvious
0:13:17 is when paul
0:13:19 talks to the corinthians about the
0:13:20 lord's supper and he says jesus took the
0:13:22 bread and he said this and then he took
0:13:24 the wine and he said this and i handed
0:13:27 on to you these things that i received
0:13:29 that very language about handing on
0:13:32 paralysis in greek
0:13:34 is um
0:13:37 indicates that paul is referring to what
0:13:38 we would call oral tradition
0:13:40 indeed and there's also some sayings uh
0:13:42 attributed to jesus in paul about
0:13:44 divorce and remarriage uh or
0:13:47 inadmissibility of divorce except in
0:13:49 certain circumstances for example yes
0:13:51 yeah that's also in first corinthians
0:13:52 seven
0:13:55 paul gives us a few places where
0:13:58 even though he didn't hear jesus say
0:14:00 these things he learned about them from
0:14:02 a very early period in the history of
0:14:05 christianity so i would say the letters
0:14:08 of paul
0:14:09 um that is the seven authentic letters
0:14:11 of paul and the five gospels the four
0:14:14 from the canon and thomas that's about
0:14:16 the only
0:14:17 materials that i have been uh convinced
0:14:20 can be used to construct a historical
0:14:22 jesus now these other texts you have
0:14:24 mentioned briefly the gospel of judas
0:14:26 and mary and so on
0:14:27 these are not first century texts are
0:14:29 they they are arguably judas much much
0:14:32 later
0:14:33 uh some of them are from the second
0:14:35 century
0:14:36 um so
0:14:39 i would say they're mostly from the late
0:14:41 second century right
0:14:43 but we have to remember that
0:14:46 the names of our four canonical gospels
0:14:48 matthew mark luke and john
0:14:50 weren't actually applied to the texts
0:14:52 themselves
0:14:53 until the late second century
0:14:56 the first evidence we have is irenaeus
0:14:59 who's a christian bishop writing it
0:15:00 around the year 200 or 180.
0:15:03 uh so there may be some
0:15:06 christian texts
0:15:08 that were written around the time
0:15:10 that at least some of the gospels the
0:15:11 god if the gospel of thomas was also
0:15:13 written in the second century which is
0:15:15 what i believe
0:15:16 um and the gospel of john may have been
0:15:18 written around the year 90
0:15:20 or 100
0:15:21 then
0:15:23 the earlier gospels that are in our
0:15:25 canon and the gospel of thomas
0:15:27 predate most of these apocryphal gospels
0:15:30 but not all of them
0:15:32 okay fair enough so given the
0:15:34 contradictions and the historical
0:15:36 improbabilities that you've outlined
0:15:37 already in the canonical gospels uh how
0:15:40 do historians what methods do they use
0:15:43 to decide what is authentic or
0:15:45 inauthentic or more likely to be
0:15:46 historical and less likely to be
0:15:48 historical what criteria do they use
0:15:51 this has also been something that's been
0:15:52 heavily debated in the last 20 years
0:15:56 and these criteria were only developed
0:15:58 in the 20th century basically
0:16:00 over the course of the 20th century
0:16:02 enough scholars came to rely on several
0:16:04 different things that they called
0:16:06 criteria
0:16:07 of historicity
0:16:09 and um
0:16:11 but and one of them would be earlier
0:16:13 sources are better than later sources
0:16:16 so if you can link the gospel of mark
0:16:19 if you can put the gospel mark at the
0:16:20 year 70 which i think we can pretty
0:16:23 reliably do
0:16:25 that makes it the earliest gospel
0:16:27 uh
0:16:28 if you link if you put paul's letters
0:16:31 around the year 50 that's even earlier
0:16:34 because that predates mark by 20 years
0:16:37 at least
0:16:39 and then
0:16:40 uh matthew and luke may come around the
0:16:42 year 80 or 85 with john coming maybe
0:16:46 around the year 90 let's say those are
0:16:48 rough estimates
0:16:50 and but that still makes them the
0:16:53 earliest gospel sources we have of jesus
0:16:56 and there is and with paul the earliest
0:16:57 sources we have
0:16:59 of the sayings and life of jesus so
0:17:01 earlier sources are better than later
0:17:03 sources
0:17:05 that's also why paul is so important
0:17:07 because like i said
0:17:08 his writings are the earliest christian
0:17:11 literature we possess period
0:17:14 if they come from
0:17:16 right before and right after the year
0:17:17 50.
0:17:19 the unit the next criterion would be the
0:17:21 criterion of multiple attestation right
0:17:24 this is the idea that if if a saying of
0:17:26 jesus
0:17:28 um
0:17:29 or similar very similar sayings of jesus
0:17:31 because they may not be verbatim
0:17:33 occur in one or more in in more than one
0:17:37 um
0:17:38 independent sources
0:17:40 then that has a little bit
0:17:42 better chance of being
0:17:44 historical what that means is that
0:17:47 uh we believe that matthew and luke used
0:17:49 mark
0:17:50 so mark would be one source he'd be his
0:17:53 own source matthew also used a written
0:17:56 saying of sources that we have called q
0:17:58 which is just from the german word kevel
0:18:00 which is a german word for source
0:18:02 and uh the theory was invented by german
0:18:05 scholars so they get to name the source
0:18:07 um and so we talk about the source q
0:18:10 and that means that when you find a
0:18:12 saying in matthew and luke that's
0:18:15 verbatim identical or almost verbatim
0:18:18 identical that doesn't count as two
0:18:20 sources that counts as one source
0:18:21 because we think they're both using the
0:18:23 same written source but if you find a
0:18:25 parable say
0:18:26 this in one version in queue
0:18:29 that is quoted by matthew and luke but
0:18:31 in a different version in mark well
0:18:33 that's two independent sources q and
0:18:36 mark and so you can say well that lends
0:18:38 a little more probability
0:18:39 uh to the fact that jesus maybe did
0:18:42 actually tell this parable
0:18:44 um then you've got the gospel of john
0:18:46 that some people this is where a lot of
0:18:48 these theories have been debated a lot
0:18:50 of people don't believe john is much of
0:18:51 an independent source because they
0:18:53 believe that john shows clear signs of
0:18:55 having known matthew mark and luke or at
0:18:58 least
0:18:59 one or two of them himself
0:19:01 so if you have something like a healing
0:19:04 for example you don't have a lot of
0:19:05 sayings of jesus and john that exactly
0:19:07 match what we find in matthew mark and
0:19:09 luke but you have a few and then you but
0:19:11 you do have some miracles that look
0:19:12 remarkably alike
0:19:14 and um
0:19:15 so some people would say if you have
0:19:17 something in mark
0:19:19 and q and a similar
0:19:21 event in john that's three sources
0:19:25 so and then the gospel of thomas of
0:19:26 course would be another
0:19:29 independent source again some people
0:19:31 would say that thomas knew the gospels
0:19:34 in the canon or at least knew some of
0:19:36 them so some people would say thomas
0:19:38 doesn't count as an independent source
0:19:40 i think there's just not enough evidence
0:19:42 to establish that in order to establish
0:19:45 dependence of one writer on another's
0:19:47 text i think you have to establish very
0:19:49 close um
0:19:50 identical
0:19:52 words and language and details
0:19:54 and i just don't believe we have that so
0:19:56 that's why i would say if you if you
0:19:58 have a saying or an event that's in
0:20:01 multiple independent sources those
0:20:03 independent sources being
0:20:05 mark q
0:20:07 and then matthew and luke can each count
0:20:09 as an independent source as long as
0:20:11 they're not using q or mark in common
0:20:14 because obviously matthew has some
0:20:16 material that's only it's unique to
0:20:18 matthew
0:20:19 luke has some material unique to luke
0:20:22 but some and so the verbatim won't count
0:20:24 there but maybe the event will
0:20:26 so for example
0:20:28 all of these sources
0:20:30 agree that the romans executed jesus and
0:20:34 they were the primary responsibility for
0:20:36 executing jesus they also agree pretty
0:20:39 much not completely but that he was
0:20:41 probably executed on a friday
0:20:44 and buried then
0:20:46 and
0:20:47 they were they all pretty much agree
0:20:49 also that he was
0:20:50 that the charge for him was treason
0:20:52 against the romans he was executed as a
0:20:55 rebel against roman power so there are
0:20:58 places where we have all of these
0:21:00 different sources
0:21:01 again as i said the last supper
0:21:03 uh it's
0:21:05 it's almost certain that jesus did have
0:21:08 some kind of last up with his disciples
0:21:10 and he said certain things about doing
0:21:11 things in his memory
0:21:13 now i don't think that was supposed to
0:21:15 be
0:21:16 an establishment of the eucharist for
0:21:18 example for the church that was a later
0:21:20 development but i do think that he could
0:21:22 have had some sort of a memorial meal
0:21:26 with his disciples because he was
0:21:28 suspecting that he was going to be
0:21:29 arrested and killed
0:21:31 because that's in paul it's in all four
0:21:33 gospels that sort of thing um
0:21:36 and there are several examples like that
0:21:38 where
0:21:39 uh
0:21:40 for example one of the things is that
0:21:42 did jesus the historical jesus actually
0:21:45 choose 12 of his disciples
0:21:48 to be an especially close circle of
0:21:50 disciples
0:21:51 and that's also in all of the
0:21:54 sources that we have even in paul paul
0:21:56 claims like he never didn't meet most of
0:21:58 them he says he met peter
0:22:01 and he says he met james the brother of
0:22:03 jesus yeah
0:22:05 but um james the brother of jesus was
0:22:07 not one of those 12.
0:22:08 no strange but he's ahead of the church
0:22:11 and he wasn't one of the twelve uh he
0:22:12 was ahead of the church in jerusalem yes
0:22:15 and probably on the basis of him being
0:22:16 jesus's brother yeah like a dynasty
0:22:19 dynasty yeah
0:22:21 there are other criteria like the the i
0:22:23 quite like the criteria of what a better
0:22:25 expression anachronism the idea that
0:22:27 historians when they spot anachronism
0:22:30 are things that shouldn't really be
0:22:32 attributed to that early period but
0:22:33 nevertheless they claim to be of it for
0:22:35 example in matthew um jesus founds the
0:22:38 church you know you are peter and on
0:22:40 this rock i will build my church the
0:22:42 great the great passage that the
0:22:44 catholic roman catholic church looks to
0:22:46 um but you say in your book that this is
0:22:48 clearly anachronistic that jesus didn't
0:22:51 found a church in fact he spoke about
0:22:52 the kingdom of god uh in in the early
0:22:55 writings but what why why is it
0:22:57 anachronistic why couldn't he ever
0:22:59 spoken at the church uh founding the
0:23:01 church well
0:23:02 you kind of have to get to it by around
0:23:04 a roundabout way and this would get into
0:23:06 what we think the historical jesus
0:23:08 actually tried to do
0:23:10 and one of my arguments if you if you
0:23:11 take the evidence that seems to be the
0:23:13 best evidence
0:23:15 jesus did not intend to found an ongoing
0:23:18 institution after his death he didn't
0:23:21 jesus did not come to to found a new
0:23:24 religion right
0:23:26 um he was a jewish apocalyptic prophet
0:23:29 who was trying to get the jews ready for
0:23:31 the coming of the kingdom of god and by
0:23:33 kingdom of god we don't mean the church
0:23:35 we mean
0:23:36 a kingdom on earth in which either jesus
0:23:39 if he was to be the messiah or some
0:23:42 future coming messiah would rule over
0:23:45 under god
0:23:46 and that would be a a political actual
0:23:50 political earthly establishment
0:23:53 um like ancient israel was like david
0:23:55 king like david perhaps
0:23:57 david exactly and so
0:23:59 but so that's one thing the other thing
0:24:01 is that in those past matthew is the
0:24:03 only one who uses that term establishing
0:24:06 the church and he uses the greek term
0:24:08 ecclesia
0:24:10 jesus didn't speak greek
0:24:12 uh by all
0:24:14 evidence
0:24:15 he may have been able to understand a
0:24:17 word or two here or there
0:24:19 but it's almost certain that he was not
0:24:20 educated enough to speak greek and he
0:24:23 greek was not his primary language
0:24:25 hebrew and aramaic if you want to
0:24:28 sometimes peop ancient people will
0:24:30 sometimes
0:24:31 be talking about what we would call
0:24:32 aramaic which is a very kindred language
0:24:35 to hebrew
0:24:36 and they'll call it hebrew in ancient
0:24:38 sources right so it's hard to figure out
0:24:41 when they the ancient writer thinks he's
0:24:43 talking about what we will call
0:24:45 classical hebrew or what uh we would
0:24:48 call
0:24:49 classical aramaic aramaic was the
0:24:51 dominant language of the syrian and the
0:24:53 assyrian empires and that's why it was
0:24:55 the dominant language of palestine
0:24:58 at the time of jesus uh because syria
0:25:01 was the dominant country at the time for
0:25:03 that part of the roman world
0:25:05 uh so
0:25:07 why would jesus have used this term
0:25:09 ecclesia which is a very specific term
0:25:12 it was used for the
0:25:13 athenian assembly of the citizens
0:25:16 and it means called out because a herald
0:25:19 would go through the city in athens and
0:25:21 call out all the citizens of athens to
0:25:23 come to the theater for a town council
0:25:26 now of course all the citizens in athens
0:25:28 only referred to male citizens who were
0:25:32 descended from athenian
0:25:34 citizens themselves so it didn't include
0:25:36 slaves it didn't include women and it
0:25:38 didn't include foreigners
0:25:40 but the ecclesia was an official sort of
0:25:44 formal term for this town council now
0:25:47 it's unclear why the early christian
0:25:49 house churches themselves and we can see
0:25:51 this already in paul
0:25:53 uh so it predates matthew they chose
0:25:56 this term ecclesia
0:25:58 among others
0:26:00 to refer to their own groups
0:26:02 that's kind of an odd choice in itself
0:26:05 but it would be really anachronistic to
0:26:08 take that greek development in
0:26:10 christianity and transfer it back into
0:26:13 around the year 30
0:26:15 in palestine it just seems anachronistic
0:26:18 another another example you give in your
0:26:20 book is the the
0:26:22 i am's as they're called in the gospel
0:26:24 of john where jesus uh appears to say i
0:26:27 am the way the truth and the life before
0:26:29 abraham was i am i am the resurrect
0:26:32 these i am statements you say that that
0:26:34 would be anachronistic because
0:26:36 a a jew a palestinian living in the 30s
0:26:40 um would not have taken on him on his
0:26:42 lips the divine name that would have
0:26:44 been that was a later christological
0:26:47 development but not attributable to the
0:26:49 historical jesus at that early stage um
0:26:52 could you elaborate on why that is the
0:26:54 case and why the gospel of john is
0:26:56 anachronistically attributing jesus
0:26:59 language he wouldn't have used
0:27:01 well it
0:27:03 it would be wrong to take me as saying
0:27:04 that no jew of jesus day would have
0:27:07 claimed some kind of divine status but
0:27:10 we also have to remember in the ancient
0:27:12 world some kind of divine status could
0:27:14 include angels
0:27:15 or
0:27:16 a human king or
0:27:19 alexander the great claims some kind of
0:27:21 divine status
0:27:22 but that's not the same as the
0:27:24 divine status that
0:27:26 early christians attributed to god the
0:27:28 father or the triune god or something
0:27:30 like that these were kind of
0:27:32 quasi-divine so an angel could be
0:27:34 considered a god or even a king could be
0:27:37 considered a god but it's important that
0:27:39 we say a god and not the god because in
0:27:43 christian terms the god is only one
0:27:46 even if you accept the trinity that god
0:27:48 is one
0:27:50 uh being in three persons you're still
0:27:52 insisting that it's one being and no
0:27:55 human being can attain that status
0:27:57 but the sayings of jesus in the gospel
0:27:59 of john where he uses that greek term
0:28:02 echo amy i am
0:28:04 he seems to be
0:28:06 echoing
0:28:07 the jewish scripture of where yahweh
0:28:10 says to moses moses says what shall i
0:28:12 tell the israelites
0:28:14 who who told me to do this
0:28:16 and this voice from the bush says you
0:28:18 tell them i am
0:28:20 uh told you
0:28:21 or at least that's the way it was
0:28:22 interpreted that the interpretation of
0:28:24 that in the hebrew language is still
0:28:26 somewhat debatable among scholars but
0:28:28 that's certainly what the greek
0:28:30 translation took it to be
0:28:31 so you tell them
0:28:33 amy i am is the god so
0:28:37 the gospel of john is directly
0:28:40 equalizing equating
0:28:42 jesus even in his pre-death
0:28:45 pre-resurrection human form
0:28:48 to god the father to the god of moses
0:28:51 and that's something we don't find any
0:28:53 jews doing and for example if you you
0:28:55 can take the the writer that his jewish
0:28:57 writer josephus
0:29:00 he relates many different stories about
0:29:02 different messianic kinds of figures who
0:29:05 claim to be a king after the kingship of
0:29:07 david or who claim to be
0:29:10 some in some cases divine in some way
0:29:13 um
0:29:14 but they never equate themselves with
0:29:17 the high god
0:29:19 and that's what you have the gospel of
0:29:20 john doing
0:29:22 so we just
0:29:23 i think that most people would just say
0:29:25 it's anachronistic to push back
0:29:28 that very christological high
0:29:30 christological in fact you don't even
0:29:32 have that in the other gospels matthew
0:29:34 mark and luke none of them equate
0:29:37 jesus with god in us in as the highest
0:29:40 god the father they just don't they call
0:29:42 jesus maybe god's son
0:29:44 or a god or something like that it's
0:29:47 only the gospel of john that's one of
0:29:48 the reasons we we chronologically place
0:29:51 the gospel of john later
0:29:53 is because we say
0:29:54 this kind of doctrinal development took
0:29:57 some time to develop
0:29:59 uh it didn't just spring right out from
0:30:01 the mouth of jesus
0:30:03 another another example of the other end
0:30:05 of the spectrum um
0:30:06 in mark's gospel a saying that's not uh
0:30:09 multiplayer tested but nevertheless
0:30:11 strikes you and many if not vast
0:30:13 majority of scholars as
0:30:15 very highly probable to be authentic is
0:30:18 um a passage in the gospel of mark
0:30:21 chapter 10 verse 17 and 18 where a man
0:30:24 comes to jesus and says good teacher
0:30:26 what must i do is inherit eternal life
0:30:28 and jesus says
0:30:30 why do you call me good there is no one
0:30:32 good but god alone
0:30:33 and there jesus seemingly denying that
0:30:36 he is good and god or by implication
0:30:38 denying he is god um so that that would
0:30:42 not that wouldn't be anachronistic then
0:30:44 that would fit in with the cultural
0:30:46 religious context of a first century
0:30:48 early first century jew but it's not
0:30:50 multiply a test well it may be no it's
0:30:53 not to be a test does it because even
0:30:54 though it's found in matthew and luke
0:30:56 they modify it politely well matthew
0:30:57 does anyway but it's not found in john i
0:31:00 don't think it's found in uh paul it's
0:31:02 not found in thomas but but you think
0:31:04 that is a a really good candidate for an
0:31:08 historically reliable um saying
0:31:11 yes and again it's kind of shows the
0:31:13 illustration of these different uh
0:31:15 criteria we're talking about it's early
0:31:17 it's in the gospel of mark our earliest
0:31:19 gospel source
0:31:21 um
0:31:22 it it is
0:31:26 also it
0:31:27 the criterion i haven't talked about
0:31:29 which this introduces is the criterion
0:31:31 of dissimilarity yeah sorry i haven't
0:31:33 introduced that yet but yeah this is
0:31:34 that made there's a good segue into the
0:31:36 criteria of dissimilarity yeah the
0:31:38 gospel of mark both ends but begins and
0:31:42 ends possibly there's some debate about
0:31:44 what the original manuscript said the
0:31:46 very first you know verses of mark say
0:31:49 this is a this is the gospel the good
0:31:51 news
0:31:52 of the beginning of uh jesus son of god
0:31:56 um and then
0:31:58 um the centurion at the death of jesus
0:32:02 when he sees how jesus dies and the
0:32:04 different miraculous events that
0:32:06 surround jesus death he says even though
0:32:08 he's a roman centurion he says surely
0:32:10 this man is
0:32:12 a son of god or was a son of god
0:32:14 now again notice that's a son of god
0:32:17 um which would be a typical way of
0:32:20 maybe referring to a very very super
0:32:22 holy man
0:32:24 or a messiah type figure or a king type
0:32:26 figure but that means that the gospel of
0:32:29 mark may not have the writer of the
0:32:31 gospel of mark may not have been so
0:32:33 indisposed to think of jesus as divine
0:32:37 because there are still hints of the
0:32:39 divinity of jesus and the gospel of mark
0:32:41 so the writer but the writer still
0:32:43 includes this
0:32:44 apparent denial by jesus that he is god
0:32:48 or equivalent to god
0:32:49 or even good
0:32:51 or even good yeah this is amazing yeah
0:32:54 so uh this seems to this is what we say
0:32:57 the saying seems to be dissimilar to
0:33:00 even the point of view of the writer of
0:33:02 the gospel himself
0:33:04 and when you have a case like that we
0:33:06 have several others from different
0:33:07 places then you say well
0:33:11 this writer didn't invent it because it
0:33:12 doesn't match his theology
0:33:14 completely so he must have inherited it
0:33:17 from some place well where did he
0:33:18 inherit it from he probably inherited it
0:33:21 from people who were passing along this
0:33:23 saying before him from whom he learned
0:33:26 as much as he knew about jesus
0:33:29 so that's a very important criterion is
0:33:32 when you find something in one of the
0:33:33 gospels or in the letters of paul that
0:33:35 seems to be somewhat dissimilar to their
0:33:37 own theology that has a better claim of
0:33:39 being historical
0:33:41 that is going back to the historical
0:33:43 jesus just a slight detour for a second
0:33:45 some scholars i mean professor john
0:33:47 barton uh from oxford said on
0:33:50 blogging theology that matthew's own um
0:33:53 editing of that very passage because
0:33:55 matthew's you know obviously used
0:33:57 virtually all of mark gobbled it up
0:33:58 virtually and edited it and or not as a
0:34:00 case maybe he tweaks this statement of
0:34:04 jesus why do you call me good to have
0:34:05 jesus say why do you ask me about what
0:34:08 is good and john barton thought that
0:34:10 this was a less than honest move on
0:34:12 matthew's part to make jesus statement
0:34:14 conform to late first century
0:34:16 christology rather than the actual
0:34:18 saying he inherited
0:34:21 would that be a view you'd sympathize
0:34:22 yes i would share that with john and
0:34:24 and i say i i would point to that
0:34:27 because john barclay i mean he's a
0:34:29 friend of mine we've known each other
0:34:31 we're we're the same age basically we've
0:34:33 been in scholarship for about the same
0:34:35 number of years
0:34:36 um and i've known him since we were both
0:34:38 graduate students
0:34:39 um but he tends to be a bit more
0:34:42 conservative than i
0:34:44 about uh what he will call the
0:34:45 historical jesus and not historical
0:34:47 jesus in other words
0:34:49 i
0:34:50 i'm i'm a bit more skeptical sometimes
0:34:54 than he is
0:34:55 about what i will take to be
0:34:57 attributable to the historical jesus so
0:35:00 if john barclay is willing to say that
0:35:01 that's
0:35:02 um
0:35:04 that changed by matthew
0:35:05 is a fudging
0:35:07 uh on matthew's part then i think that
0:35:09 shows that
0:35:10 yeah it was it was john barton sorry i
0:35:12 passed on this but john barton who is
0:35:14 the professor of holy scripture
0:35:16 university of oxford he's a british um
0:35:18 new testament scholar um that's right
0:35:21 he's made an old testament scholar i
0:35:22 guess that's but he's also obviously
0:35:24 expert on the news and that even would
0:35:25 strengthen my position more because john
0:35:27 barton is even more conservative than
0:35:28 john barclay
0:35:30 in indeed no i've noticed that the view
0:35:33 you expect is is very common indeed if
0:35:35 not ubiquitous uh amongst new testament
0:35:37 uh scholars so you briefly and very
0:35:40 eloquently i think uh outlined the
0:35:43 criteria um i i that scholars
0:35:46 particularly the 20th century have used
0:35:47 to
0:35:48 uncover or discover the historical jesus
0:35:51 i note recently in the last 10 20 years
0:35:53 there's been
0:35:54 some disquiet among some scholars anyway
0:35:56 about these criteria perhaps not being
0:35:59 uh as reliable or as efficacious as uh
0:36:02 they were supposed to be uh perhaps have
0:36:05 a greater emphasis on the the overall
0:36:07 kind of thrust of the gospels teaching
0:36:09 so if mark has jesus talking about the
0:36:11 kingdom of god repeatedly then that that
0:36:14 that kind of
0:36:15 uh uh
0:36:17 very strong evidence or strong testimony
0:36:20 counts as evidence for a generalized
0:36:22 picture of who jesus really was if so
0:36:24 what i mean it is i mean what what's
0:36:27 been going on the last 20 years with
0:36:28 scholars you seem to be turning or some
0:36:30 turning against these criteria um
0:36:33 for some reason
0:36:35 well for some reason there are reasons
0:36:38 and one of the reasons is that you don't
0:36:40 get tenure if you just say the same
0:36:42 thing as everybody else's thing
0:36:44 okay interesting okay so you know part
0:36:47 of the scholarship is all about revision
0:36:50 and so
0:36:51 there's a there's a there's a felt need
0:36:55 among scholars to say something new and
0:36:56 something different even if the new and
0:36:58 different you're saying is something
0:37:00 that people believed a hundred years ago
0:37:01 also
0:37:02 but you're just kind of bringing back
0:37:04 some things the most one of the most
0:37:05 famous scholars who's made the precisely
0:37:07 the argument you're talking about is
0:37:09 dale allison again in his very thick
0:37:12 book and i can't
0:37:14 recall the title of it but
0:37:16 what resurrection is it or another one
0:37:18 no it's about more than historical jesus
0:37:21 type of he's kind of attacking the whole
0:37:24 historical method and he precisely uh
0:37:28 does this thing of um
0:37:31 saying the more i'd be somewhere sorry
0:37:34 the more it is also somewhere in my
0:37:36 house i am i assume
0:37:38 uh if since i've sold my practically my
0:37:40 entire library i'm not sure i even have
0:37:42 the book in the house anymore but it was
0:37:44 a very important book
0:37:46 in which he basically said no we need to
0:37:48 throw these criteria out and just go
0:37:50 with whatever occurs most
0:37:53 yeah
0:37:54 uh if a saying occurs in a in
0:37:56 a bunch of places a lot of times than
0:37:58 that
0:37:59 um
0:38:00 but the way he gets there
0:38:02 is by pointing out what all of us would
0:38:05 admit
0:38:06 which is these criteria are not
0:38:09 um completely reliable they're not like
0:38:12 test tubes
0:38:13 yeah it's not like it's not like physics
0:38:16 or biology where you can actually repeat
0:38:17 the experiment
0:38:18 these are really the educated guesses i
0:38:21 suppose if i can put it that way and in
0:38:22 fact the the the uh
0:38:27 the
0:38:28 verbalizing
0:38:30 of these criteria
0:38:33 were secondary to their use by scholars
0:38:35 in the 20th century
0:38:37 scholars started making different kinds
0:38:39 of arguments for why they thought this
0:38:40 was historical and that was not
0:38:42 historical
0:38:43 and then it really was later maybe in
0:38:45 the
0:38:46 50s or 60s that scholars started
0:38:49 actually giving these criteria names and
0:38:52 labeling them and saying okay this is
0:38:53 the criterion of dissimilarity
0:38:55 or some people would call that in those
0:38:57 days the criterion of embarrassment
0:38:59 because they would say
0:39:01 no early christian writer would invent a
0:39:03 saying that would be an embarrassment to
0:39:05 him
0:39:06 or sound i can sound less orthodox than
0:39:09 he wanted to be
0:39:11 now a lot of us have
0:39:13 not wanted to use that word criterion of
0:39:14 embarrassment because it it makes it a
0:39:17 psychological issue and we say it's not
0:39:19 a psychological issue
0:39:21 it's a textual decision that you make
0:39:23 about when you're comparing texts
0:39:26 um
0:39:27 and so it's a scholarly discussion it's
0:39:29 not a discussion by freud or something
0:39:31 like that yeah
0:39:33 so
0:39:34 um but
0:39:37 these people have said
0:39:38 and dale allison made
0:39:40 a lot of most of his book is basically
0:39:43 devoted to saying
0:39:45 um to pointing out places where well
0:39:47 this could be the case but here are the
0:39:50 reasons why it may not be the case
0:39:52 well careful scholars of the historical
0:39:54 jesus have always said
0:39:57 this is not an exact science
0:40:01 anymore any more than any historiography
0:40:03 is an exact science
0:40:05 uh we can't tell you
0:40:07 exactly what happened when washington
0:40:09 crossed the delaware
0:40:11 you know we can't and that's why
0:40:12 historians have arguments about it
0:40:15 but very few people would doubt that
0:40:17 washington crossed the delaware and
0:40:19 surprised the hessian troops
0:40:21 at trenton
0:40:23 you know they're just
0:40:26 history is always a matter of
0:40:27 probabilities
0:40:29 and so these criteria are not set out as
0:40:31 scientific proofs there's they're
0:40:34 actually descriptions of what scholars
0:40:36 have been doing for the last 100 years
0:40:39 or so
0:40:40 and we just give labels to them
0:40:43 although i agree with you dale i am
0:40:45 struck though when i read
0:40:46 a diverse range of top new testament
0:40:49 scholars say you know random example of
0:40:51 you or uh tom wright or you mentioned
0:40:54 dale allison they all write with the
0:40:56 confidence that this is the historical
0:40:58 jesus and yet their conclusions
0:41:00 particularly tom wright i mean he's a
0:41:02 very celebrated british scholar who's
0:41:04 very well known in the united states and
0:41:05 much loved in conservative christian
0:41:07 circles there as well he's a real
0:41:09 scholar but you know his reconstruction
0:41:11 of second temple judaism and the
0:41:13 historical jesus
0:41:15 expressed with great eloquence and
0:41:17 certainty really is so different from
0:41:19 your reconstruction yes
0:41:21 and yeah he would you know and so i'm
0:41:23 wondering you know given this incredible
0:41:26 difference with you know almost as many
0:41:28 jesus's as there are biblical scholars
0:41:30 one wonders if these criterias are
0:41:32 really so leaky and so kind of
0:41:35 unable to produce a kind of general
0:41:38 consensus that has to be
0:41:40 of questionable utility
0:41:42 well that's true and that's why when i
0:41:44 teach this stuff in classes uh taught in
0:41:47 classes i'm now retired and haven't
0:41:48 taught in years but when i talk this
0:41:50 stuff in classes i always try to
0:41:52 emphasize to my students
0:41:54 that i'm trying to describe what is a um
0:41:58 an activity that scholars do
0:42:01 but that i try to say but you can you
0:42:04 can use these methods and you can use
0:42:06 these ideas and come up with very
0:42:08 different answers
0:42:09 now i also use the term though critical
0:42:11 scholar a critical scholar
0:42:13 um
0:42:14 and you know people would say well
0:42:16 that's a question begging kind of
0:42:19 claim you're just saying you're the
0:42:20 critical scholar and these other people
0:42:22 who disagree with you are not critical
0:42:23 scholars
0:42:24 and i say well but there's a test for
0:42:26 this
0:42:27 um my test for whether someone's
0:42:30 historical jesus
0:42:31 is the result of critical scholarship is
0:42:34 this
0:42:35 does the end result of the scholarship
0:42:38 match or not match that scholars
0:42:41 personal beliefs
0:42:44 so for example
0:42:47 what you see with tom wright is that
0:42:50 most of the time his jesus matches a
0:42:52 good conservative anglican priest jesus
0:42:56 what a remarkable coincidence dale how
0:42:58 remarkable can you get and what if you
0:43:00 look at my historical jesus
0:43:02 i consider myself also
0:43:05 an orthodox anglican although
0:43:07 episcopalian in my case because i live
0:43:09 in america
0:43:10 but i claim uh the anglican tradition is
0:43:13 my own i didn't grow up with it i grew
0:43:15 up as a fundamentalist but i became an
0:43:18 episcopalian and i confess the nicene
0:43:21 creed i confess the apostles creed
0:43:23 i'm a good orthodox christian in the
0:43:26 anglican tradition
0:43:28 but my historical jesus doesn't match
0:43:30 the jesus i worship
0:43:33 no
0:43:34 and i think that is
0:43:36 that's what makes my construction a
0:43:38 better critical construction of the
0:43:40 historical jesus because i'm willing to
0:43:43 criticize i'm willing to
0:43:45 place in the furnace
0:43:47 um
0:43:50 my
0:43:50 christian faith
0:43:52 and see what survives
0:43:55 the fires of historical historical study
0:43:58 and see what doesn't
0:44:00 and i believe that if
0:44:03 this is true of paul it's true do you
0:44:05 does your paul end up looking
0:44:07 like a good southern baptist
0:44:09 if you are a southern baptist well if
0:44:11 that's the case then you probably don't
0:44:13 understand paul very well in my view
0:44:15 because paul wasn't baptized but one
0:44:17 thing i'm sure of he was not a southern
0:44:19 baptist
0:44:20 exactly
0:44:22 if anything paul was a calvinist but
0:44:24 even that's debatable oh cool there's a
0:44:25 calvinism
0:44:29 but yes so
0:44:31 that's what i would tell my students is
0:44:33 if you read something written by a
0:44:35 modern scholar
0:44:36 and you find out anything about the
0:44:38 biography of that modern scholar
0:44:40 does he or she go to church if so what
0:44:43 kind of church
0:44:44 does he or say she profess
0:44:46 uh personal religious beliefs if so what
0:44:49 kind of religious beliefs and this is
0:44:50 true of liberals as well as
0:44:52 conservatives i mean there are there are
0:44:54 countless uh liberal scholars who come
0:44:57 up with a historical jesus that
0:44:59 remarkably look like modern liberal
0:45:02 secular humanists um
0:45:05 and we could all name them uh so
0:45:08 you know they they
0:45:09 they say oh gee jesus would never have
0:45:11 talked like this but he did teach about
0:45:14 the you know the love of all humankind
0:45:17 that his message was not doctrinal it
0:45:20 was ethical and but they also would deny
0:45:22 that jesus was preaching an imminent
0:45:25 coming of the kingdom of god
0:45:27 because of course that would mean that
0:45:28 jesus was wrong
0:45:30 and so they deny an apocalyptic jesus
0:45:33 and as i say it's no accident that they
0:45:36 deny an apocalyptic eschatological jesus
0:45:38 because they themselves are not
0:45:40 apocalyptic eschatological christians
0:45:42 now there's an example in your work
0:45:44 which illustrates you i think your own
0:45:46 if i can put it your own critical
0:45:47 integrity on this because
0:45:49 uh you write in uh the book uh new
0:45:52 testament history and literature which
0:45:54 is basically a a written version of your
0:45:56 yale lectures to undergraduates i think
0:45:58 yes um that jesus is teaching uh
0:46:02 the probable historical jesus
0:46:04 taught quite an aesthetic
0:46:06 um moral code when it came to marriage
0:46:09 and divorce
0:46:11 um
0:46:12 i he didn't approve of he disapproved of
0:46:14 divorce and that's a really radical
0:46:15 thing in the judaism of his day where
0:46:17 divorce was permitted in mosaic law but
0:46:20 he had a quite uh uh but when it came to
0:46:22 the practice of fellowship uh you know
0:46:25 he would hang out reputedly with
0:46:27 prostitutes and other uh you know people
0:46:30 who drank and and had a good time
0:46:32 partied and so on so on the one hand he
0:46:33 was quite aesthetic and kind of uh what
0:46:36 we would say very conservative when it
0:46:38 came to marriage but on the other hand
0:46:40 in his socializing he wasn't but he also
0:46:42 he wasn't a
0:46:43 he wasn't advocating family values in
0:46:45 the in the good old american sense of
0:46:47 um traditional values because he seemed
0:46:50 to have this kind of eschatological
0:46:52 family so whoever accepted his mission
0:46:55 and his vision for god and god's rule
0:46:58 would become his brother and sister and
0:47:00 mother and it actually says that in mark
0:47:01 isn't it but the point about the the
0:47:03 sexual morality thing is because um
0:47:06 you you don't subscribe to jesus ethic
0:47:08 clearly in your own writings in your own
0:47:10 views but you have a different
0:47:11 understanding but your your historical
0:47:13 reconstruction of jesus was that he was
0:47:16 very very um
0:47:17 illiberal that's the right anachronistic
0:47:20 word when it came to matters like
0:47:22 divorce and marriage
0:47:24 um so you what you're saying your
0:47:27 critical reconstruction and your own
0:47:28 theology and episcopalianism
0:47:31 are are very distinct that they're not
0:47:34 one is not servicing the other clearly
0:47:35 unlike perhaps with people like tom
0:47:37 wright where they are pretty much the
0:47:39 same arguably yes
0:47:41 but it's even more complicated than that
0:47:43 because i believe
0:47:44 that jesus
0:47:46 did not
0:47:48 advocate marriage
0:47:50 oh um
0:47:53 which make which makes you think that
0:47:55 okay if he
0:47:56 didn't advocate marriage why wouldn't he
0:47:58 allow divorce
0:48:01 because he does say
0:48:02 you know to his disciples that there
0:48:05 should leave their
0:48:06 their households and a few these and
0:48:09 whether he said they should leave his
0:48:11 wives is debatable because it's not in
0:48:12 all the sources but it's multiply
0:48:14 attested that when he called disciples
0:48:16 he told them to leave their households
0:48:18 and in some cases it's and including
0:48:21 their wife or when he says unless you
0:48:23 hate your mother and your father and
0:48:25 your brother and sister and in one case
0:48:27 is this and your wife you have to hate
0:48:29 your wife
0:48:30 and i don't think that means a guttural
0:48:32 emotion of hatred i think that means you
0:48:35 despise those as things not worthy of
0:48:37 your attention
0:48:39 christians when i mention this to um
0:48:41 some christians they they usually never
0:48:43 believe that jesus actually said that
0:48:46 according to the gospels and it's
0:48:47 actually there in luke's gospel where in
0:48:49 obviously the english translation of the
0:48:51 greek
0:48:52 jesus is apparently what he is saying
0:48:54 unless you hate your parents and your
0:48:56 wives and son actually does say that and
0:48:58 uh people don't believe it because how
0:49:00 can that be jesus teaching but it's in
0:49:02 the gospel at least
0:49:04 so on the one hand you have jesus
0:49:06 demanding that his disciples
0:49:09 leave their households and in some cases
0:49:11 leaving even leave their wives
0:49:14 and jesus never advocated
0:49:16 uh childbearing never never nor did paul
0:49:22 um paul
0:49:24 paul also was not really for marriage
0:49:27 and yet both paul and jesus were against
0:49:29 divorce
0:49:31 now
0:49:32 it just doesn't seem that those fit
0:49:34 together very well right
0:49:36 the fact that they don't fit together
0:49:38 very well is an argument for their
0:49:39 historicity yep because it's not a neat
0:49:42 uh plausible kind of scenario someone's
0:49:44 creating it's got it has that
0:49:46 awkwardness and contradictoriness that
0:49:48 reality has sometimes exactly um
0:49:51 the fact that both paul and jesus for
0:49:53 bad divorce
0:49:55 neither of them advocate they neither of
0:49:57 them were fans of marriage and family
0:50:00 but you would have thought that
0:50:02 they would have advocated divorce
0:50:05 if they were not proponents of marriage
0:50:07 and family
0:50:08 and yet neither of them do
0:50:12 so
0:50:13 it's complicated but i think that very
0:50:15 complications of the position
0:50:18 render it more likely historical
0:50:21 yeah yeah because because real life is
0:50:22 not tidy and needs and all
0:50:25 real life is paradoxical and uh yeah
0:50:27 that i i see your point so who so coming
0:50:30 back to
0:50:31 the question
0:50:32 who was the historical jesus now i know
0:50:35 there's a lot of caveats about it the
0:50:36 historical jesus is the construction by
0:50:39 modern historians according to modern
0:50:41 historiographical rules
0:50:42 i get that but
0:50:45 as far as
0:50:46 we can peer back through our sources
0:50:49 leaving out the anachronisms leaving out
0:50:51 the the secondary things leaving out the
0:50:54 clearly made-up stories
0:50:56 what emerges from that is it um
0:50:59 in the light of mark 10 verse 17 and 18
0:51:01 why do you call me good no one's good
0:51:03 but god alone
0:51:04 what kind of
0:51:06 what kind of person
0:51:07 is jesus according to historical
0:51:09 reconstruction
0:51:11 okay i put my glasses on because i
0:51:13 thought you might ask this question
0:51:15 and i knew i would not be able to
0:51:16 remember it from the top of my head
0:51:19 but do you mind if i just read you a
0:51:20 list of things please what i think can
0:51:23 be said about the historical jesus and
0:51:25 defend it and then
0:51:27 we can come back and talk about any of
0:51:28 them uh that you want
0:51:30 first jesus was a disciple of john the
0:51:33 baptist oh yes indeed that's very
0:51:36 because he was baptized by john the
0:51:38 baptist therefore
0:51:39 fortunate to join the bible also this
0:51:41 this fits the criterion of dissimilarity
0:51:43 because all the gospels who talk about
0:51:45 jesus's baptism by john denied that he
0:51:48 was a disciple of john
0:51:51 they say he went to john to please god's
0:51:53 will or some other reason but they try
0:51:55 to they try to pooh-pooh his
0:51:58 his baptism by john so that means it's
0:52:00 almost certainly uh historical also
0:52:03 several of jesus's closest disciples
0:52:04 were former disciples of john the
0:52:06 baptist yeah yeah so that's an important
0:52:08 that's a good one that also means that
0:52:10 jesus and this goes with a lot of
0:52:11 sayings i say he was an apocalyptic
0:52:14 jewish prophet
0:52:15 he wasn't a greek philosopher
0:52:18 he wasn't a christian theologian
0:52:20 that means that he was jewish to the
0:52:23 core and he was announcing the imminent
0:52:25 coming of the kingdom of god on earth
0:52:28 and heaven
0:52:30 i think he was generally uneducated
0:52:33 uh there's no
0:52:34 a lower class galilean peasant
0:52:37 galilean and there was no galilee in
0:52:39 high school no galilean university where
0:52:42 youngsters went
0:52:43 no country that we know of now just
0:52:45 though
0:52:47 he was his he was executed by the romans
0:52:50 on the charge of treason and rebellion
0:52:53 he appointed 12 disciples
0:52:56 also that 12 the number 12 is important
0:52:58 because why 12
0:53:00 well
0:53:02 this this is where the eschatological
0:53:04 jesus come back then we believe that he
0:53:06 chose the number 12 because in the
0:53:08 gospel it says these will be the 12
0:53:11 judges of the 12 tribes of israel now
0:53:14 the 12 tribes of israel did not exist in
0:53:16 jesus day
0:53:17 except in the minds of jews
0:53:19 so jesus must have believed that the
0:53:21 messiah came
0:53:23 he would reconstitute israel into 12
0:53:25 tribes and his 12 chosen disciples would
0:53:28 be the heads of each of these 12 tribes
0:53:31 right
0:53:32 um he was a healer and a miracle worker
0:53:35 but it's just all over the place so no
0:53:37 need to deny we don't know we don't need
0:53:39 to show we don't need to say that he
0:53:40 actually worked miracles
0:53:43 we can just say he was known in his time
0:53:44 to be a healer and a miracle worker
0:53:47 his mother was mary
0:53:49 he had a brother named james
0:53:51 probably his father was joseph
0:53:54 he taught jewish wisdom kinds of sayings
0:53:57 uh he taught in parables and sayings
0:54:00 not in
0:54:01 lengthy
0:54:02 sermons like the gospel of john
0:54:04 galilee was his base that's where he
0:54:07 started his ministry he was in jerusalem
0:54:09 at the end of his life
0:54:10 he was born in nazareth not bethlehem
0:54:14 uh he taught love as a central
0:54:16 commandment i think that's indisputable
0:54:18 that the love the dual commandment of
0:54:21 loving god and loving the neighbor
0:54:23 encapsulated all of the jewish law
0:54:26 he spoke hebrew and aramaic
0:54:28 not greek and certainly not latin as you
0:54:31 would believe from the gospel of john or
0:54:33 english i thought i'd just say that
0:54:34 because some people think you know the
0:54:35 jesus spoke in king james version
0:54:37 english he did yeah when i was growing
0:54:39 up in fundamentalist church i would
0:54:41 people would say well if the king james
0:54:42 version was good enough for jesus it's
0:54:44 good enough for me it's a great saying
0:54:46 one of the greatest yeah and then the
0:54:48 last thing is as i said before
0:54:51 he did not seek to found a religion
0:54:54 he sought to announce
0:54:56 and maybe compel there's certain places
0:54:58 where i think there's evidence that he
0:55:00 was trying to force god's hand why did
0:55:02 he go to jerusalem at the end of his
0:55:04 life
0:55:04 well i wrote an article one time that
0:55:06 said
0:55:07 jesus had come to believe that he if he
0:55:09 didn't force god
0:55:12 to send the messiah
0:55:13 and overthrow the romans it wasn't going
0:55:15 to happen and that's why he committed
0:55:17 what he did in the temple by overturning
0:55:19 the tables and and causing a ruckus he
0:55:22 didn't really think that he could
0:55:23 overthrow the romans but i think he saw
0:55:26 himself as a prophetic figure like
0:55:28 isaiah or jeremiah and they would do
0:55:30 these
0:55:31 uh you know
0:55:33 theatrical acts
0:55:35 in jerusalem right
0:55:38 illustrate their prophetic mission but
0:55:39 also sometimes to force god to act
0:55:42 yeah and so i think that's what he was
0:55:44 about not founding a religion not
0:55:46 founding a church now those are just a
0:55:48 list of a few things that i think
0:55:50 are incontrovertibly um
0:55:53 i noticed you left one out well one that
0:55:55 i i would uh well i mean i i personally
0:55:58 think and that is jesus the
0:56:00 law observant jew it seems to me that he
0:56:04 didn't come to abolish the law and
0:56:06 someone else might have said that but he
0:56:07 actually obeyed the law yes he
0:56:09 interpreted it in a way that was in
0:56:11 accordance with his understanding you
0:56:12 mentioned love so that might have been
0:56:14 different from say how allegedly some of
0:56:16 the pharisees or the sadducees
0:56:17 understood it but does not the early
0:56:19 evidence suggests that he nevertheless
0:56:21 obeyed the law
0:56:22 yes he interpreted it in his own way and
0:56:24 is that not a key date to them as well
0:56:27 yes i think that is key but you have to
0:56:29 be very careful about that because
0:56:31 um
0:56:33 jesus was not a sadducee for sure
0:56:36 because he believed in the resurrection
0:56:38 the sadducees did not
0:56:40 yeah jesus was not a pharisee
0:56:42 and it's because he didn't accept a lot
0:56:44 of what people then would the people
0:56:46 some scholars would call the traditions
0:56:48 of the fathers
0:56:49 the handwashing incidents and those
0:56:51 kinds of things jesus
0:56:53 did not teach his disciples to wash
0:56:55 their hands before they ate jesus did
0:56:57 not teach his disciples initially
0:56:59 particular forms of prayer
0:57:02 so
0:57:02 there are things that separate him from
0:57:05 the
0:57:06 jesus was not an essene a member of like
0:57:08 the qumran community he was much more in
0:57:12 our terms liberal
0:57:14 in his interpretation of the law
0:57:16 that's why i think that jesus uh
0:57:18 believed that
0:57:21 ethics basically could be interpreted by
0:57:23 the the guide of the love commandment
0:57:26 um and
0:57:28 and i think that's undoubtedly uh goes
0:57:31 back to historical jesus
0:57:33 which means that he could be quite um
0:57:35 free in his interpretation of what the
0:57:38 law said or what the law required
0:57:41 and i think that's probably right and
0:57:43 that's what got him into trouble with at
0:57:45 least
0:57:46 uh the pharisees
0:57:48 but but some scholars have said that
0:57:51 despite what you say uh he was more
0:57:54 liberal in some ways and so on but it
0:57:56 was still within the the boundaries of
0:57:58 the the in intra-jewish discourse about
0:58:01 how yes yes
0:58:03 we didn't step outside of that and say
0:58:05 no the torah now forget it we're going
0:58:07 to follow some some other path no no no
0:58:10 in fact
0:58:11 jesus would not have been even the most
0:58:14 uh liberal in his interpretations
0:58:17 just comparing to philo of alexandria
0:58:19 who
0:58:20 just basically used allegory
0:58:23 to get around most of what the torah
0:58:26 said
0:58:27 and uh
0:58:28 you know
0:58:29 jesus would have looked conservative in
0:58:31 the same room with philo
0:58:33 of course
0:58:34 philo is also
0:58:35 a greek educated philosopher
0:58:37 yeah he was a hellenistic jew he wasn't
0:58:39 kind of and he he did speak greek unlike
0:58:41 jesus and he wrote
0:58:43 yeah yeah
0:58:44 um okay so jesus was a a jewish prophet
0:58:48 like isaiah like jeremiah and he even
0:58:52 enacted uh his message like those
0:58:55 prophets did in slightly different ways
0:58:57 he didn't take off his clothes or
0:58:58 anything like that which is one of them
0:58:59 did and you walk around naked for three
0:59:01 years like isaiah did no i don't believe
0:59:04 jesus did that and um
0:59:05 uh but but nevertheless there was an
0:59:07 apocalyptic or eschatological sort of uh
0:59:10 accent or t um orientation to
0:59:13 his uh his preaching which uh again fits
0:59:16 in with the early church with paul his
0:59:18 early letters one thessalonians which is
0:59:20 very apocalyptic uh in its tone uh
0:59:23 unlike much later letters attributed to
0:59:25 him like one and two timothy and
0:59:27 titus
0:59:28 and even paul sorry john rather which is
0:59:31 seems that whole apocalyptic fervor an
0:59:34 expectation seems to have been toned
0:59:36 down or even absent exactly and the
0:59:38 other thing you can do it helps to
0:59:39 compare jesus with other figures we know
0:59:42 from the same period so as i said he
0:59:44 started off as a disciple of john the
0:59:45 baptist
0:59:46 but he was not as rigid as john the
0:59:48 baptist when it came to
0:59:50 you know behaviors like ascetic behavior
0:59:52 i don't think he was as pathetic as john
0:59:54 the baptist and maybe that was one of
0:59:57 the reasons
0:59:58 that um he separated himself out from
1:00:01 john the baptist movement
1:00:03 jesus jesus never denied that he
1:00:06 liked a good drink every once in a while
1:00:08 you know like wine and hung around with
1:00:10 sinners
1:00:11 that doesn't look like john the baptist
1:00:13 you know who walked around
1:00:15 apart from the cities and wore camel's
1:00:17 hair and ate locusts
1:00:19 um
1:00:20 not a great diet i wouldn't recommend
1:00:22 that diet today i really wouldn't
1:00:24 and she got lots of ketchup perhaps
1:00:26 exactly
1:00:28 so um okay i i've got to ask the obvious
1:00:31 question and i i know this is a separate
1:00:32 discussion and it's not the purpose of
1:00:34 uh your uh contribution today
1:00:37 but i've got a notice i've got to say it
1:00:39 that what you said
1:00:41 speaks of much discontinuity
1:00:44 between the historical jesus for example
1:00:46 not founding a church not founding a new
1:00:48 religion preaching the kingdom of god
1:00:51 uh having a non-eucharistic last supper
1:00:54 and so on and so on why did you call me
1:00:56 good no one's good by golola all these
1:00:58 indicate pretty fundamental
1:01:00 discontinuities between all that and
1:01:03 the later christian faith of the creeds
1:01:05 and the councils of the church
1:01:07 um now this gap
1:01:09 seems like a chasm
1:01:11 and and i know this is not the point of
1:01:13 this discussion but i just know that it
1:01:14 exists and and i know you have uh if
1:01:17 viewers want to read uh
1:01:19 dale martin's own um discussion of
1:01:21 precisely this theme biblical truth is
1:01:23 the meaning of scripture in the 21st
1:01:25 century you do discuss these issues uh
1:01:27 in great depth i know um that's a
1:01:29 separate discussion but would you have
1:01:30 any initial at least comments on this
1:01:33 what i'm calling a gap or discontinuity
1:01:35 between these
1:01:36 two well i i think that
1:01:40 when i
1:01:42 i didn't come
1:01:43 to be a christian
1:01:46 by doing historical research
1:01:49 i became a christian
1:01:51 for whatever reasons i mean and people
1:01:54 say well why do you believe and i'll say
1:01:56 well do you want
1:01:58 my own kind of
1:01:59 biolog you know autobiographical answer
1:02:02 or do you want a theological answer yeah
1:02:04 exactly and the theological answer i
1:02:06 would say is i don't know god gave me
1:02:09 the miracle of the gift of faith and uh
1:02:13 but but historically you know you have
1:02:15 to say well what were you when you
1:02:19 you know decided you wanted to
1:02:22 remain become a christian or remain a
1:02:24 christian now see i didn't really become
1:02:26 a christian in the sense because i was
1:02:27 raised in a christian home and christian
1:02:29 parents and grandparents and you know i
1:02:32 was raised in the church and so uh i
1:02:34 just never saw any need to reject that
1:02:36 and turn my back on that completely now
1:02:38 a lot about it i have rejected i'm gay
1:02:41 for example and i
1:02:43 i don't have any desire to be married
1:02:45 even to another man
1:02:47 and so there are several different
1:02:49 aspects about the traditional church
1:02:50 that i don't accept
1:02:52 but it never led me to believe that the
1:02:54 whole thing had to be thrown out in fact
1:02:57 i just always believed that my life
1:02:58 would be much impoverished if i threw it
1:03:01 all out um so
1:03:03 when i go to church i'm living out
1:03:06 that aspect of my life that came to me
1:03:09 through faith and it was only after
1:03:11 being a christian of faith
1:03:13 that um
1:03:15 i learned what
1:03:17 these historic graphical tools and i
1:03:19 started trying to apply them to uh the
1:03:22 bible first to the bible just to the
1:03:24 text what can we say about the text in
1:03:26 its
1:03:27 most original meaning by the authors who
1:03:30 the human officer wrote it
1:03:32 and then what can we say about the
1:03:33 historical jesus
1:03:35 but um whenever i went into that i i
1:03:38 didn't do that
1:03:40 um
1:03:41 with the end result that that those
1:03:43 results caused me to lose my faith i
1:03:46 just think that means that
1:03:48 these two parts of my brain
1:03:51 don't operate completely as one
1:03:54 um
1:03:56 i treat that actually i'm a
1:03:57 post-modernist as you know and i treat
1:04:00 uh language and belief systems and
1:04:02 cultural systems as discourses
1:04:05 and certain discourses only make sense
1:04:07 within the
1:04:08 discourse with which you provide them
1:04:10 within you assume them the example i've
1:04:12 given many times is
1:04:14 um
1:04:15 if i say to someone would you close for
1:04:17 me
1:04:18 well what does that mean
1:04:20 well if i'm a lawyer in a court and i
1:04:23 turn to one of my
1:04:25 you know defend defendant lawyers and i
1:04:27 say okay would you close for me i'm
1:04:30 meaning would you close the case for me
1:04:32 because i've done a lot of interrogating
1:04:34 and you can just close so you close the
1:04:36 case wrap it up
1:04:38 if i'm a doctor in an operating room i
1:04:40 say to a nurse would you close for me
1:04:43 or to an attending physician and
1:04:45 everybody knows what that means you
1:04:47 suture up the wound you clean it all up
1:04:49 you close with them
1:04:50 um if i say it in a store when i i'm
1:04:54 saying one of my co-workers in a in a
1:04:55 store somewhere would you close for me
1:04:57 that means i usually lock up but i have
1:04:59 to go to a meeting would you close the
1:05:01 store down for me in other words would
1:05:03 you close for me has absolutely no
1:05:06 meaning
1:05:08 on its own
1:05:11 and so when it says
1:05:12 when i say i believe in jesus christ son
1:05:15 of god
1:05:18 that only makes sense for me
1:05:20 in a christian context
1:05:23 as a confession of faith
1:05:25 i can't say that as a historian because
1:05:27 historical discourse is simply a
1:05:29 different discourse it has different
1:05:31 rules
1:05:33 it's very similar to speaking more than
1:05:35 one language you know
1:05:37 i was i've been fluent in spanish and
1:05:40 french and italian and german at
1:05:41 different times in my life
1:05:43 currently i can just barely speak
1:05:45 spanish and german and i've forgotten
1:05:46 all the others but anybody who's learned
1:05:49 more than one language knows that when
1:05:51 somebody says well
1:05:52 what do you mean when you say
1:05:55 and sometimes you just have to say i
1:05:57 don't think i can say that in english
1:06:00 it means about this
1:06:02 but it's about that it's not exactly
1:06:04 that and in fact in order to tell you
1:06:06 what i mean by it i have to give you a
1:06:08 context of why would a spanish-speaking
1:06:10 person say this
1:06:13 um
1:06:16 not i can think of words
1:06:19 you know the word
1:06:21 what does allah mean
1:06:24 well
1:06:25 it kind of means
1:06:30 if if only it were so
1:06:33 or god willing
1:06:35 but you don't have to believe in god to
1:06:36 say god willing or o
1:06:39 because the word god willing the words
1:06:40 god willing
1:06:42 said in just a normal conversation do
1:06:44 not imply faith necessarily what
1:06:47 language is that by the way i wasn't
1:06:48 familiar with that expression
1:06:51 it's a it's gonna it's an expression
1:06:53 that i remember just hearing a lot in my
1:06:55 life but
1:06:56 um
1:06:58 i could be saying that and be totally
1:06:59 wrong and forgetting which language i
1:07:00 got it out of but they're just all kinds
1:07:02 of fragments of languages in my head
1:07:05 and
1:07:06 um
1:07:08 they don't mean anything in translation
1:07:10 in strict translation
1:07:12 and so that's the way i believe about
1:07:14 statements of faith in a context of
1:07:17 faith
1:07:18 and for me it's not a context of just
1:07:20 numeral faith like faith in some kind of
1:07:22 grand meaning of the universe it's it's
1:07:25 a faith that's rooted in the christian
1:07:27 narrative and christian sources
1:07:32 now i i can say i believe in god the
1:07:34 father and then i have to explain well i
1:07:36 don't really think god is a father
1:07:39 so what does it mean when i say
1:07:41 i confess god the father well
1:07:44 it may even mean something that any
1:07:46 buddhist would say which is that god is
1:07:49 simply a tag
1:07:50 we put on to the question of why is
1:07:52 there meaning in the universe
1:07:54 it's just a word that fills a gap in
1:07:56 what we can't explain
1:07:59 and
1:08:00 but just to challenge that for a second
1:08:01 i mean historically in the creeds when
1:08:03 they had been discussed by you know the
1:08:05 great and the good like saint thomas
1:08:06 aquinas or augustine or anselm and so on
1:08:10 there was a quite quite a lot of
1:08:12 metaphysical content it wasn't just a
1:08:14 tag
1:08:15 you know that they used the language of
1:08:16 greek philosophy uh you know aristotle
1:08:18 in philosophy in aquinas's sense to
1:08:20 really give substance pun intended by
1:08:23 the way uh substance to uh these tags so
1:08:26 they're not quite as free-floating as as
1:08:28 as your description of this implies
1:08:30 surely if one is going to have the
1:08:32 creeds one must
1:08:33 have that have that content
1:08:35 understanding as well there's not just
1:08:37 free floating words they
1:08:39 they have that substance
1:08:41 well that i i would challenge you on
1:08:43 that especially with thomas aquinas okay
1:08:46 because yes there thomas always talked
1:08:48 out of both sides of his mouth it's even
1:08:50 the way he constructed his book right
1:08:52 his books were like here's a thesis
1:08:54 here's an antithesis and then how can
1:08:57 you know yeah and so thomas will talk
1:09:00 that way sometime
1:09:02 but it's more like my former colleague
1:09:03 at yale dennis turner who is him
1:09:07 yeah he's atomist and he's a catholic
1:09:10 and he's a philosopher and uh he's
1:09:14 thomas aquinas it's a brilliant book
1:09:18 dennis would believe that thomas would
1:09:20 agree with him when they say things like
1:09:22 and i'm not sure dennis actually said
1:09:24 this verbatim like this but he would say
1:09:26 something like this
1:09:27 the statement god is
1:09:29 simply proves that we know nothing about
1:09:32 what we mean by god or is
1:09:36 in other words it's negative theology
1:09:38 it's the idea that everything we say
1:09:40 about god
1:09:41 as an attribute of god
1:09:43 is false
1:09:45 it may be true in a sense but it's also
1:09:48 false in a sense that's why when i
1:09:50 published that book biblical uh my
1:09:52 biblical theology was called biblical
1:09:54 truths
1:09:55 i wanted to call it in a sense
1:09:59 over and over in that book i say well
1:10:01 this is true in a sense yeah but it's
1:10:04 also false in a sense
1:10:06 and that's just the way christian
1:10:07 theology is when you put it in that long
1:10:10 tradition and i would include augustine
1:10:12 in this i would include aquinas in this
1:10:15 and i would even include paul in some of
1:10:17 his
1:10:18 things because paul is much clearer
1:10:20 about how we don't know what we we don't
1:10:23 know what we're saying when we talk
1:10:24 about god
1:10:27 um there there are passages from paul
1:10:29 that would
1:10:30 be easily interpreted to support that
1:10:34 thomistic saying
1:10:35 um
1:10:37 so
1:10:39 i would i would say that my way of
1:10:41 talking about
1:10:42 christian faith as being
1:10:45 susceptible to historical inquiry
1:10:48 but not identifiable with historical
1:10:50 conclusions
1:10:52 is something that thomas would agree
1:10:54 with and i know it's something that many
1:10:57 modern theologians would agree with and
1:10:59 besides my former colleague dennis
1:11:01 turner i could cite my former colleague
1:11:03 catherine tanner
1:11:04 who's published extensively on this
1:11:06 topic too
1:11:08 i notice you quote her in your in your
1:11:10 work as well yes um okay well perhaps in
1:11:14 in conclusion then we've been chatting
1:11:15 for over an hour absolutely fascinating
1:11:17 um
1:11:19 what would you want people to understand
1:11:21 about the historical jesus uh in
1:11:23 listening to your discussion here what's
1:11:25 the takeaway do you think for people
1:11:30 um honesty is a virtue
1:11:33 and if you want to play the game of
1:11:36 history and i admit it's a game of
1:11:38 history
1:11:39 history does not render to you absolute
1:11:41 truth
1:11:43 it gives you a product
1:11:45 but if you want to play the game of
1:11:46 history play it honestly
1:11:49 pay back play by its rules
1:11:52 in other words
1:11:53 if you want to construct a historical
1:11:55 jesus and here again i would insist i
1:11:56 mean construct a historical jesus
1:11:59 you're not finding the historical jesus
1:12:01 well that's it that's an important point
1:12:03 because the historical jesus is not
1:12:04 except
1:12:05 the actual real flesh and blood jesus
1:12:07 another is not accessible to us
1:12:10 radically not accessible two thousand
1:12:12 years ago we we you know we're into you
1:12:14 know we'd have but so what historians do
1:12:17 is they construct
1:12:18 a story i guess based on various
1:12:21 principles and rules they construct a
1:12:23 portrait
1:12:24 they paint a portrait
1:12:26 and they use their imagination but if
1:12:28 you're going to do it you have to
1:12:30 use historical the rules
1:12:33 of a historian
1:12:35 and play by the rules which means for
1:12:37 example
1:12:38 don't try to construct a historical
1:12:40 jesus in a way that you would
1:12:42 differently from
1:12:44 Applause
1:12:45 a historical julius caesar
1:12:48 um
1:12:50 a good historian will never say
1:12:52 that julius caesar was raised to the
1:12:54 level of divinity on upon his death
1:12:58 historians just won't say that or they'd
1:13:00 never get tenure
1:13:02 and so christian scholars should stop
1:13:04 saying things like that
1:13:06 in christian universities too they're
1:13:08 not playing
1:13:09 the historical game
1:13:12 by the rules
1:13:13 they're shifting the rules that's why i
1:13:15 say
1:13:15 honesty is a virtue play the game of
1:13:18 history honestly
1:13:19 playing by the rules of normal
1:13:22 secular historians historians who don't
1:13:24 have a case to prove when it comes to
1:13:26 jesus divinity or jesus miracles or
1:13:29 jesus walking on water or anything like
1:13:31 that
1:13:33 now that means you're not going to get
1:13:35 again jesus as he actually was in
1:13:37 history
1:13:39 because that's unaccessible to us
1:13:43 and of course the jesus as he actually
1:13:45 was
1:13:46 in real history
1:13:48 from a christian point of view
1:13:51 would be the son of god in the divine
1:13:53 sense
1:13:55 that's your your view isn't it
1:13:57 because it's not as historian now you're
1:13:59 saying because the real jesus is
1:14:01 inaccessible to historians we've
1:14:03 established that
1:14:04 well
1:14:05 the way i put it is just to say
1:14:07 see you're kind of putting it into a
1:14:09 metaphysical ontological statement yes
1:14:13 jesus in history was the son of god yeah
1:14:16 that that inaccessible jesus not the
1:14:18 jesus of
1:14:19 construction
1:14:21 but the jesus the real jesus as you
1:14:24 would call him but there's no real jesus
1:14:26 that's what i'm trying to say they're
1:14:28 only the jesus of faith or the jesus of
1:14:30 history there's no real jesus i see i
1:14:32 see it's according to which discourse
1:14:34 you're talking about
1:14:36 as a christian i say of course the real
1:14:38 jesus is the divine jesus
1:14:40 the and the second i would even go for
1:14:42 them that the second person of the
1:14:43 trinity
1:14:45 fully fully and also of two natures
1:14:48 fully human and fully divine
1:14:51 but all of that is taking the jesus
1:14:53 as
1:14:54 jesus came to be
1:14:56 in the creeds of the church
1:14:58 now
1:14:59 if someone says to explain why do i do
1:15:01 that i think well i i have a part of my
1:15:04 faith is believing that
1:15:06 what became christian doctrine
1:15:08 didn't exist in the year 30
1:15:11 in palestine no developed well what
1:15:14 makes me a christian is that i believe
1:15:16 that the holy spirit
1:15:18 led the church
1:15:19 into fuller truths that didn't exist in
1:15:22 the for humans in the year 30.
1:15:24 in other words
1:15:25 later developments of christian faith
1:15:28 are themselves
1:15:29 divine developments
1:15:33 they are led by the
1:15:35 providence of god
1:15:37 but it makes no sense
1:15:39 as a historian to say
1:15:42 that the nicene creed is true
1:15:44 because it was led by the providence of
1:15:46 god
1:15:49 it's not what you can't say that it is
1:15:51 it just doesn't make any sense to say
1:15:53 that in the context of historical
1:15:55 research but is it not the case that you
1:15:57 the human being the the holistic dale
1:15:59 martin and put it that way uh believe
1:16:02 that the real jesus i'm not talking
1:16:04 about the historical reconstruction the
1:16:05 real jesus which we don't have access to
1:16:07 nevertheless for you was the second
1:16:09 person of the trinity i don't believe in
1:16:11 using the word real that's part of the
1:16:13 problem
1:16:15 by putting the word real in there
1:16:17 you're shifting
1:16:19 back to an
1:16:20 ontological
1:16:22 monism
1:16:24 what's wrong with ontology i mean
1:16:25 ontology metaphysics
1:16:27 nothing's wrong with ontology it's an
1:16:29 ontological monism it's the idea that
1:16:33 once you actually find out the true
1:16:35 nature of something
1:16:36 it's got to be one thing
1:16:38 yeah
1:16:40 i'm not sure
1:16:41 that's what i'm debating
1:16:42 i see
1:16:44 this is a philosophical issue really
1:16:45 isn't it it's not yeah okay um now the
1:16:48 word ontology just refers to how do you
1:16:51 think about the nature of being
1:16:53 and um you know we can talk about that
1:16:55 all day long and there's nothing wrong
1:16:56 with ontological discussions like that
1:16:59 but if you think an ontological
1:17:00 discussion is going to get you to the
1:17:02 real being of the thing
1:17:04 that's when you're mistaken but i
1:17:06 thought that's what christian
1:17:07 faith required belief in the ontology of
1:17:11 jesus being
1:17:13 fully god fully man second person to
1:17:14 trinity that's an ontological statement
1:17:16 a metaphysical claim about a mind
1:17:19 independent reality so it's not
1:17:21 something from our heads that's actually
1:17:23 subjective
1:17:24 that's the christian claim
1:17:26 exactly but it's not the historical
1:17:28 claim uh indeed but i'm saying that's
1:17:30 why i said that for dale martin the
1:17:32 holistic
1:17:33 because you are not you are not an
1:17:35 historian that is not your complete
1:17:36 identity uh your historical uh acumen
1:17:40 and knowledge is
1:17:42 a facet of that but you're more than
1:17:44 that
1:17:44 but your ultimate i guess i'm trying to
1:17:46 say does not your christian perspective
1:17:49 trump
1:17:50 historical criticism at the end of the
1:17:51 day no
1:17:54 there are two different realms of
1:17:55 discourse okay notice they're not two
1:17:58 different realms of reality we don't
1:18:00 have access to reality
1:18:03 we only have access to language
1:18:07 what you're trying to do is push me to
1:18:09 talking about the true nature of reality
1:18:12 and the whole point of this is to say we
1:18:14 do not have access to reality
1:18:17 we have access to language
1:18:19 now we can choose to live in one
1:18:21 language or live in another language
1:18:24 it's again let's bring up language you
1:18:26 can say that there's french and there's
1:18:29 english
1:18:31 but neither
1:18:32 but you couldn't take french and english
1:18:34 and just force them into each other so
1:18:36 that you get
1:18:38 a non-linguistic real
1:18:42 it doesn't exist
1:18:44 unless as a christian you say well the
1:18:46 only real that is real is god
1:18:49 and then you have to fall back on
1:18:50 negative theology again and say yeah we
1:18:52 don't know what that is
1:18:54 and we can't know what that is when we
1:18:56 say god is real we just prove we don't
1:18:58 know what
1:18:59 the words god is and real mean
1:19:06 fascinating okay
1:19:11 it's post-modern because it it
1:19:13 absolutely turns its back
1:19:16 on the idea
1:19:18 that there's a single
1:19:19 discourse say history or science or
1:19:22 theology or whatever yeah that in itself
1:19:25 can
1:19:26 can hand you reality on a platter
1:19:29 yeah there's no such thing
1:19:32 that doesn't mean that they're not
1:19:33 different realities
1:19:35 although although a a wag or cynic might
1:19:38 say that that very definition of
1:19:39 post-modernism refutes itself because it
1:19:42 is that that person's definition about
1:19:43 ultimate reality is a statement about
1:19:45 ultimate reality that it cannot be
1:19:47 defined it's like saying all truth is
1:19:49 relative well that statement itself is a
1:19:51 statement of absolute truth
1:19:53 no then again that against uses it uses
1:19:56 a false ontological equation to make a
1:19:59 clever rhetorical point because the
1:20:01 postmodern position doesn't say there's
1:20:03 no reality
1:20:05 it just says we don't have access to it
1:20:09 and that's that's just a personal
1:20:11 historical statement just saying i've
1:20:14 tried through a lot of different methods
1:20:15 to find out what the truth with the
1:20:17 capital t for all the universe means and
1:20:19 i can't get there
1:20:22 and i've done enough of it to believe
1:20:23 that you can't get there either at least
1:20:25 with the languages we have now now it
1:20:27 also is open to
1:20:29 the future it may say maybe humanity
1:20:32 will discover some kind of language
1:20:35 that really is
1:20:37 the eternal hebrew
1:20:39 we just don't know what it is yet
1:20:41 but if you believe that there's one
1:20:42 language whether it's history or science
1:20:45 or religion or whatever that can get
1:20:47 that is the true language
1:20:50 of reality you're just back to
1:20:53 you know
1:20:54 the beginning of before modernity when
1:20:56 they said well the true language of all
1:20:59 truth is hebrew
1:21:02 and if we just translate everything into
1:21:04 hebrew we would get to
1:21:05 true reality
1:21:08 i think this is going off the subject i
1:21:09 just say as a kind of footnote i i was
1:21:12 very impressed with the way emmanuel
1:21:13 kant deals with the
1:21:16 difficulties of empiricism and
1:21:17 rationality in in providing uh enduring
1:21:21 certain scientific epistemology and his
1:21:23 solution in the critical pure reason to
1:21:25 do is synthetic a priori categories and
1:21:28 statements um i i just was blown away by
1:21:31 that and you know he does actually
1:21:32 advance beyond the a priori into
1:21:35 synthetic truths when he talks about the
1:21:37 categories of space and time and
1:21:39 causality and so on and that that does
1:21:41 seem to
1:21:42 um advance i mean obviously we can't
1:21:44 know newman and things in themselves but
1:21:46 nevertheless
1:21:47 he does seem to move into
1:21:50 objective objective uh knowledge
1:21:52 objective ontology or epistemology in a
1:21:54 way which
1:21:55 isn't at tension with where you're
1:21:58 characterizing the post-modern world but
1:22:00 that's a very different subject but
1:22:02 that's why i'm also i'm very keen on
1:22:04 plato so i mean
1:22:05 just to throw a name in you know
1:22:08 enough said you know um maybe that's a
1:22:11 an emotional preference rather than an
1:22:12 intellectual one i don't know
1:22:14 but um all that says several red
1:22:16 herrings all over the place though
1:22:18 exactly
1:22:19 going over there
1:22:20 um all right um professor dale martin uh
1:22:23 it's been an absolute pleasure um and
1:22:25 thank you so much for explaining so
1:22:27 eloquently and succinctly um
1:22:30 the criteria that historians use to
1:22:31 uncover the historical jesus what that
1:22:34 means the historical jesus and also what
1:22:37 he historically speaking um most likely
1:22:39 was about not founding a new religion
1:22:42 you know being an apocalyptic prophet
1:22:44 and so on is very very instructive um
1:22:48 and i've already mentioned it several
1:22:49 times but if you want to pursue the the
1:22:51 uh the themes that dale has uh
1:22:54 articulated particularly about
1:22:56 post-modernism and how to
1:22:57 read the bible in the world that we live
1:22:59 today uh biblical truths is certainly
1:23:01 the go-to book it's got some raid
1:23:03 reviews from
1:23:04 a couple of professors at oxford and
1:23:06 durham university loyola university in
1:23:08 the states as well so it's well received
1:23:10 by the academic community as well so
1:23:14 thank you very much dale um i believe we
1:23:17 we will meet again one more time to talk
1:23:19 about christian the
1:23:21 the faith beyond the new testament we'll
1:23:23 come to that maybe another time but uh
1:23:25 okay
1:23:26 thank you so much and um i'll end it
1:23:28 there and um but to stay on i'm gonna
1:23:30 end the broadcast but if we could just
1:23:31 stay on for a second so thank you until
1:23:34 next time
1:23:35 all right