JESUS CHRIST (̓Ιησοῦς Χριστός). The double title occurs only five times in the gospels, whereas it is very frequent in Acts and the epistles. In the gospels the title is used twice at the beginning of Matthew, in the opening v. of Mark, in the prologue of John and in John 17:3. The last occurrence has been questioned because of the strangeness of Jesus using it Himself, but the textual evidence is indisputable.
This article will consider various aspects of the life, teaching, and death of Jesus according to the following outline.
Outline
I. The significance of the name
The separate names—Jesus and Christ—warrant careful examination. “Jesus” is the Gr. form of the Heb. “Joshua” יְהﯴשׁ֣וּעַ, יְהﯴשֻׁ֨עַ׃֙, or יֵשׁוּ, Yahweh saves, a name borne by several OT characters. It was a common name among the Jews in the time of Jesus. Jesus Christ is generally distinguished from other bearers of the same name by the addition of the description “of Nazareth,” at least when first introduced in the gospel narrative. Mark, for instance, after using the title Jesus Christ in the introductory statement, refers to Jesus as having come from Nazareth of Galilee (1:9). A similar procedure is followed by Matthew, who nevertheless also used the description, not infrequently, in the body of the gospel. In all the gospels, the name Jesus is used alone in the great majority of cases. In the Acts is a mixture of uses. When the life of Jesus is mentioned, it is usually the form “Jesus” alone. Frequently, Jesus is identified as the Christ.
In Matthew 1:21, the Christian significance of the name is explained. It is seen as a divinely appointed name and its meaning is derived from the root idea of salvation—“for he will save his people from their sins.” It was not until later in the post-Resurrection period that the significance of this was recognized.
The other description, that of “Christ,” is of essential importance, because it at once makes an assertion about the human Jesus that differentiates Him from all other men. There had been false Christs, but only one true Christ. The word represents the Hebrew Messiah (מָשִׁיחַ, H5431), which means “Anointed One,” but had come to be used specifically of the anointed of God, who was to come in fulfillment of ancient prophecies. At this point it is the intent of this article not to discuss the variety of concepts current among the Jews regarding this messianic hope, but rather to denote its meaning in the Christian sense. There can be no doubt that the identification of the historical Jesus with the expected Messiah was the key to the early Jewish Christian understanding of the mission of Jesus. The name Jesus Christ carries with it therefore deep theological significance. One must consider not only the bare historical facts about Jesus of Nazareth, but also the interpretation of those facts.
II. The background to the life of Jesus
A vast store of lit. describes the historical background of the period of the life of Jesus. A true historical perspective cannot afford to neglect this information, which has been valuably reinforced in recent years by the Dead Sea area. Since only the briefest sketch can be given of the historical background, the developments within Judaism from a religious point of view and the political position leading to the time of the incarnation of Jesus will have to be largely by-passed. Our concern will be the conditions which obtained during the brief span of the life of Jesus, and to this end some account will be given of the political, social, cultural and religious situation.
A. The political situation. The Rom. occupation of Pal. had brought with it many benefits, but had incurred the implacable hatred of the Jewish people. The occupying forces were in their eyes a threat to their national heritage and aspirations. They accordingly objected most violently to the taxation system which had been introduced and which was the cause of constant irritation. Any Jew who stooped low enough to assist in the collection of any of these taxes was the object of contempt and was socially ostracized. Under the tax system a chief collector was responsible for a whole district and then farmed out the task of collecting the taxes to sub-collectors, a process which lent itself to considerable abuse and extortion.
One feature of the political situation was the considerable measure of self-government allowed to the Jews. Much of the government of Pal. was in the hands of the ruling religious party and was conducted in accordance with OT principles. There was a central council (Sanhedrin) in Jerusalem and local councils in various other centers. Punishment, where possible, was administered as the Jewish Law decreed, the main method being flogging, of which there are several instances in the NT (note esp. the case of Jesus Himself). The fact that the Jewish accusers of Jesus required Pilate’s sanction for the execution of the death sentence suggests that this was the usual procedure, although in the case of Stephen it was not followed. No doubt there were many occurrences of the operation of a kind of mob law. The central Jewish council consisted of elders, chief priests and scribes, a grouping which is often mentioned in the gospels and Acts. Although there was officially only one high priest who presided over the ecclesiastical-political administration, others who had previously held office were included under the same term, as were also others who held high Temple offices (cf. J. Jeremias, Jerusalem II B, 17ff.).
Within the Rom. empire as a whole a fair degree of political stability had been achieved under the rule of Augustus. It was a period of great consolidation in the realm of administration and jurisdiction. The Romans found that the Jews were, however, among the most turbulent of their subjects, mainly because of their religious peculiarities and their strongly isolationist and nationalistic aspirations.
It was the policy of the occupying power to attempt to achieve some degree of adhesion among the various peoples of the provinces by absorbing their local deities into the Rom. pantheon, but this policy was impossible in the case of the Jews, who possessed no image for their God. No doubt the Romans had little real understanding of the Jewish people, which was reflected in their series of procurators sent to Pal. Pilate may be cited as an example, although he was worse than most, as is seen from the fact that the Rom. authorities recalled him because of his mishandling of the situation. He committed many atrocities against the Jews which bitterly antagonized them. He took no steps to avoid offending their religious scruples. It is no wonder that at the trial of Jesus they threatened to regard Pilate as illdisposed toward Caesar if he let Jesus go, a threat which had considerable thrust in view of the mounting tension between the procurator and the people, and in view of the former’s fear of incurring the emperor’s displeasure. On a previous occasion the Jews had appealed to Caesar who had overridden Pilate’s action. Such was the uneasy political situation into which Jesus Christ came and under which He died.
B. The social situation. The main points to be noted are the social structure of society generally and of the home in particular. The Jewish nation was still governed by the patriarchal concept of society. Moreover, there was considerable veneration for age, which placed the older men in a position of influence. Women and children were not favorably placed in the Jewish society. In this respect the Romans had advanced further toward their emancipation. There are incidents in the gospels which illustrate the inferior position of women, e.g. the Samaritan woman, for the Samaritans were on a level with the Jews in social structure. As far as the law was concerned, women were not obliged to be taught the law. Jewish education, which centered in the learning and interpretation of the law, was provided for boys but not for girls. It is one of the more surprising features of the ministry of Jesus, although it took place in an essentially Jewish setting, that women were numbered among His followers.
In the realm of marriage there were two divergent schools of thought among Jewish teachers regarding the permissibility of divorce. The school of Hillel was less stringent than that of Shammai, the former allowing divorce for a number of pretexts in which the wife displeased the husband, while the latter allowed it only in the case of infidelity. This illustrates the fluidity of social ethics even among the Pharisees. Generally speaking, the home was an important unit in the Jewish social structure. It was a matter of social honor for a man to marry. Moreover, among the Jews there was no sanction for the widespread heathen practice of exposing unwanted babies to the elements to die.
In the time of Jesus the Jewish society was roughly divided into two groups. The religious parties, the Sadducees, Pharisees and Essenes (particularly the two former) considered themselves apart from the ordinary people. There was considerable contempt for the “people of the land” (Ha’am ha ’ares), particularly among the Pharisees, a factor which will be commented on when the religious situation is outlined below. From a social point of view it is important to recognize this distinct division, because it explains many of the sayings of Jesus about His contemporaries.
C. The cultural situation. In the northern district of Pal. there were many Hel. cities, in which Gr. ideas and practices flourished. Not only was this true of the cities known as the Decapolis, but also of many other cities on the borders of Pal. Something of the impact of this could not fail to affect those sections of Jewish culture which were most open to outside influence. Previous to the discovery of the Qumran lit. it seemed most unlikely that Hel. ideas would have permeated into Jewish circles, but the Qumran community, although Jewish, was not impervious to Gr. and even Oriental influences. Whereas the major currents of Jewish thought, particularly that of the Pharisees, were still resistant to the inroads of Gr. culture, yet in the time of Jesus the narrowerer exclusiveness was beginning to break down. An interesting question arises regarding the possibility of Jesus using the Gr. language in Galilee, in addition to Aram. No certain answer can be given, but there is little doubt that many in Galilee used Gr. In all probability the area was bilingual, and the possibility certainly exists that Jesus was acquainted with Gr. His teaching was certainly in Aram., for not only have a few of the Aram. expressions been preserved in the Gr. gospels, but Aram. was the language of the common people, to whom Jesus mainly addressed Himself. It is not impossible, however, that Jesus was acquainted with Gr. modes of thought, and it need not be considered incredible that at times He expressed His teaching in forms which would have affinity with those modes (as appears at times to happen in the fourth gospel).
D. The religious situation
1. Worship among the Jews. In the Jewish religious outlook of the 1st cent. there were two major foci, the law and the Temple. The Jewish people may well be described as the people of the Torah, for the teaching of the law was normative for Jewish life. It was not just the written code of law, but a great body of oral tradition, which for them possessed equal validity. All Jewish boys were grounded in the teaching of the Pentateuch from their earliest schooling. The Book of Leviticus was, in fact, their first textbook. It was the parents’ responsibility to instruct their children in the minutiae of the ceremonial law as the various festivals came around. The synagogue services would serve the same purpose. These services comprised confession of faith, prayer, Scripture reading, address and benediction. The Scripture reading was in accordance with a lectionary, based on a three-year cycle, in which a passage from the books of the law was linked with a passage from the prophets. It is possible, however, that no fixed passages were set for the prophetical books in the time of Jesus, although such an arrangement is known to have been followed at a later date. The choice of reader and preacher was left to the ruler of the synagogue, who could invite anyone capable of doing it. This accounts for the number of occasions when Jesus addressed synagogue audiences. The ruler of the synagogue exercised a great deal of influence and was regarded with respect by the people. The local communities were essentially religious communities.
Although the synagogue was the center of community life, the Temple cultus exerted a powerful influence over the pious Jew for a number of reasons. The Jews of Pal. and the Jews of Diaspora (those in regions outside Pal.) were still considered a single unit, and one important unifying factor was a common allegiance to the Temple cultus. Every year pilgrims came to Jerusalem from other parts of Pal., and from Jewish settlements throughout the empire, to attend the various festivals and particularly at Passover time. The Temple worship was highly organized, with twenty-four divisions of priests, who worked on a rotation system to insure continuity and efficiency.
The sacrifices of burnt offerings were offered twice daily in the Temple, but there were many other kinds of offerings in addition. The burnt offering was significant for the people of Israel as a whole, but there were other types of offerings for individuals, whether offerings for unintentional sins, or votive offerings before some hazardous undertaking, or thank offerings for some deliverance. The Temple cultus had great relevance to the everyday life of the people. But it was at festival times that special focus was upon the Temple. Since the festivals play some part in the Gospel events, it is fitting for some description to be given, as John makes a feature of them in his account of the activity of Jesus.
There was a festival for the New Year, but this is not referred to in the gospels, nor in fact is the Day of Atonement, observed shortly afterward, in which the high priest alone was permitted to enter the Holy of Holies. There are several references to the Passover, which assumes particular importance for the life of Jesus, for this festival was in progress at the time of the crucifixion. It was not long before the historical connection led to the recognition of a theological link. This was indeed implicit in the institution of the Last Supper. It was customary for the family group, in fact, to remain together over the Passover night. This throws light upon the group of disciples whom Jesus had with Him for the final Passover meal, and explains why He did not leave Jerusalem that night for Bethany. In close connection with the Passover was the feast of Unleavened Bread, also mentioned in the gospels. This was held as a festival of remembrance of the Exodus, although it originally commemorated the commencement of harvest.
The most joyful festival was Tabernacles, which was popular because it involved the worshipers in dwelling in booths constructed from foliage. In the Temple courts were special illuminations and a daily ritual involving the pouring out of water. Both of these features furnished Jesus with a teaching point when He was in Jerusalem at the time of the feast (John 7:1ff.). In John’s gospel the feast of Dedication is also mentioned, but no particular significance is attached to it. The feast of Pentecost, which was a thanksgiving festival for the grain harvest, is not mentioned in the gospels, but is prominent in Acts.
It is a fair deduction that since Jesus was a Jew the Temple cultus must have had great importance for Him, a fact which is borne out by two particular occasions: the first when He questioned the doctors of the law in the Temple at the age of twelve and regarded this as His Father’s business, and the second when He cleansed the Temple of unworthy elements by appealing to what Scripture said about His Father’s house.
There was one more feature which was shared by all Jews regardless of the party to which they belonged. This was their exclusiveness. In some ways this was a beneficial feature, but in other ways not. Those tenets which the Jewish people held to tenaciously were better preserved through an exclusive policy than would have been the case had they allowed themselves to become mixed up with Gentile ideas and practices. The Maccabaean wars had been sparked off by an attempt to do this, and in the time of Jesus the Jewish people could not forget the heroism which had preserved for them the uniqueness of their faith. There were two main areas in which the Jews were superior to their heathen neighbors—in their theology and in their ethics. Their concept of God was infinitely more exalted than the idolatry of the contemporary Gentile world and caused many of the finer minds among the Gentiles to seek satisfaction as Jewish proselytes. The same may be said of the ethical ideals of Judaism, which were in marked superiority to the debased morals of the heathen religions. This sense of superiority and the desire to hedge themselves around contributed in no small measure to the intense dislike for Jews noticeable among many Gentile peoples.
2. The Jewish parties. For a right evaluation of the religious atmosphere in the time of Jesus it is necessary to survey the four major groups—Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and Zealots. Of these the first is the most important for one’s purpose because of its more dominant religous influence and because of the frequent interchange which Jesus had with them. The Sadducees were more politically powerful, but Jesus did not find Himself so often taking up issues with them on religious matters. The Essenes are not mentioned in the gospels at all, but should not for that reason be ignored, for their very existence was a protest against the other parties, a protest with some aspects of which Jesus would find Himself in sympathy. The Zealots come into the gospel story only incidentally, although it should be noted that one of the apostles is named Simon the Zealot.
a. A comparison between Sadducees and Pharisees. It will be valuable to make such a comparison before giving more detailed attention to the Pharisees. The Pharisaic party had its rise in the movement of the Hasidim, who were opposed to the Maccabaean militarism and were devoted to a campaign to bring about repentance and spiritual renewal. Among the Pharisees this developed into a legalistic approach, which is amply illustrated by many incidents recorded in the gospels. They spared nothing in their devotion to the law. They were committed to carry out what the scribes prescribed. It is not surprising, therefore, that at the time of Jesus the majority of scribes belonged to the Pharisees. The party was characterized by a deep religous zeal which extended not only toward the Torah, but also to the oral law. This was the same position that rabbinic Judaism maintained toward the Halakah, or traditional law. Pharisaism can be rightly assessed only against this sense of devotion to a tradition which was as binding as the written code. Some of the reasons for this legalistic approach will be discussed below, but for the present it is the purpose to compare Pharisaism in these features with Sadducean ideas.
The Sadducees adhered only to the teaching of the Pentateuch and strongly rejected the Pharisaic overloading of the law with tradition. Basically, the Sadducees were nearer to a purely Biblical approach, although it must be remembered that the Pharisees sincerely believed that oral tradition provided an adequate, indeed the most adequate, interpretation of the Mosaic law. They were basically agreed therefore on the importance of the Pentateuch as a foundation for Jewish society.
The difference in attitude toward the oral law led to some fundamental disagreements. The most notable controversies were over the Resurrection, which Pharisees maintained, but which Sadducees denied. The latter disputed supernaturalism generally, as is seen from their rejection of belief in angels. They were, in fact, hardheaded, with a tendency toward materialism.
In Pal. in the time of Jesus they were the land-owning class, whose main interests were political rather than religious. They regarded the Rom. subjugation as rather less obnoxious than their Pharisaic brethren. In matters of jurisdiction the Sadducees were inclined to greater severity of action than the Pharisees, who erred on the side of leniency for fear of unwittingly opposing truth. Gamaliel’s advice of caution (Acts 5:38f.) is typical of this approach. When the Sadducean Caiaphas was considering the threat of Jesus to the Jewish hierarchy, he displayed a devotion to political expediency which no Pharisee would have expressed so unequivocally (John 11:48). Compared with the Pharisees, the Sadducees had a lesser concept of God and a greater confidence in man, although still related to the Jewish law.
b. The Pharisees and their doctrines. (1) The schools of Shammai and Hillel. Mention has already been made of these two schools, but it is important to have a clear understanding of the difference between them when considering the attitude of Jesus toward Pharisaism as a whole. Hillel, who originally came from Babylon, maintained a liberal approach toward the law, whereas Shammai was more rigorous. The former was prob. a city man and the latter more in touch with agriculture, and this difference appears to have had some bearing on their general religious attitudes. It should be remembered that these two schools of thought virtually constituted the national Bar for local jurisdiction under the Rom. constitution. Their decisions were more than niceties of Jewish casuistry, but affected the everyday running of the country.
Some examples of the differences in their rulings may be given to illustrate the fact that judgments on some issues could differ considerably. It has already been pointed out that Shammai allowed divorce only for unchastity or gross immodesty, whereas Hillel admitted it for any cause which displeased the husband. The same tendency is seen in relation to debts outstandin in the Sabbatical year. Since the law specified that all debts must be forgiven during that year, it became impossible for poor people to obtain loans during the previous period, but Hillel found a way around this by inventing the device known as “prosbul,” which circumvented the requirement for all debts to be forgiven. This is an example of the liberalizing treatment of the law which went to such an extent that it virtually nullified the Mosaic requirement.
The Pharisees, particularly Hillel’s party, were making serious attempts to face new problems realistically. The Sadducees tended to take the view that where no law existed on any issue, none could be made. But the Pharisees were prepared to see how the law could be adapted to new issues. This arose from this conviction that the law must be normative in all situations. Some of the criticism of Jesus directed against this party were against the casuistry with which they were attempting to apply their chosen policies. It may assist in appreciating the tendency of Pharisaism to impose minute directions in all spheres of ethical conduct if it is realized that the restrictions themselves were regarded as safeguards. The common people, it was supposed, would too easily transgress the law if sufficient barriers were not erected to hedge it around. Their casuistry was thought to possess social implications, and whereas they despised the common people as an inferior breed, they prided themselves with having their welfare at heart.
Of the Pharisees and Sadducees, the former were the most popular with the people. They shared with them a common hatred of the Romans, as against the more compromising tendencies of the Sadducees. Moreover, their doctrines and practices were respected even when they were not acted upon. They had a studied policy to court popularity, as for instance, by street corner prayers, which were condemned by Jesus for ostentation. In the light of this popularity, it may seem strange that Jesus was so strongly critical of them, but reasons will later be given why His denunciations were so strong.
(2) The main tenets of Pharisaism. A brief account of these tenets is necessary because they formed the background for some of the teaching of Jesus. Pharisaism had a high concept of God. He was powerfully active in human history, particularly in the history of Israel. This exalted concept had been pushed so far that He had become transcendental. While there was still divine activity, it was through intermediaries. The Torah had indeed become the major agency of God in His dealings with men. It was against such a view of God that the teaching of Jesus about the fatherhood of God must be placed.
It was because the law was the expression of the eternal will of God that it became for the Pharisee the norm in all matters of behavior. Any action which contravened the law, as Pharisees understood it, was an act of impiety and must be condemned. It was not easy for a Pharisee to accept such authoritative pronouncements as those which fell from the lips of Jesus, which went beyond the precepts of the law. The national existence was so bound up with observation of and loyalty to the law that the Pharisees could not accept that any personal authority could abrogate or even modify the official understanding of the law.
It is not surprising to find that Pharisees were addicted to pride. Their theology centered not only in the superiority of Israel over other nations as special objects of God’s favor, but also in the additional favor shown to those whose piety was proved by exceptional devotion to legal observance. It is the very nature of legalism, with its emphasis on human achievement, to engender pride.
Another feature of Pharisaic belief was acceptance of the immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the body and future retribution. Those eligible for resurrection, according to Josephus, seem to have been restricted to the righteous. Since the Sadducees denied the Resurrection altogether, it is evident that in the realm of eschatology Jesus stood nearer to the Pharisees. For the latter the future world judgment was regarded as the consummation toward which all human history was moving. This accounts for the absence of the same materialistic and political considerations, on the part of the Pharisees, which were so dominant with the Sadducees. The idea of the end (eschaton) played no inconsiderable part in the teaching of Jesus.
When the Messianic beliefs of the Pharisees are examined, it is not easy to form a consistent picture. There was frequent use of both the titles, Messiah and Son of David. These show the expectancy that one would come to occupy the throne as King in Israel. This Messiah was to be anointed by God, raised up to lead the people in righteousness. It was as much a spiritual as a political concept; it had inevitable political overtones, since Israel was itself a theocratic nation. Various opinions existed concerning the nature of the Messiah to come. Some thought in terms of a heavenly being, others in terms of a warrior king. None ever supposed that the Messiah would be rejected by His people. It was for this reason that the notion of a suffering Messiah was a great stumbling block to the Jewish people. The bare idea of a suffering Messiah was not completely unknown, but where it existed it was in the sense of chastisements encountered through fidelity to the law, and in any case it did not belong to Jewish beliefs in the time of Jesus.
Many of the rigid ceremonial requirements imposed on the Pharisees were aimed at preserving ritual purity. The detailed requirements had obscured the original purpose of the law, which merited and received the severest condemnation of Jesus. Yet, it is important to note that at no time did He condemn their sincere desire to fulfill the law. He made it clear that He Himself had not come to destroy the law but to fulfill it.
It will be seen that whereas there is much in the actions and teaching of Jesus which would not have conflicted with the Pharisaic ideals, the unique approach of Jesus would lead to a direct confrontation with cherished traditions, and the many controversies recorded in the gospels are therefore not surprising.
c. The essenes. Until the discovery of the DSS, knowledge of this group came mainly from Philo, Josephus, and Pliny. Most scholars are convinced that there is a close relationship between the Essenes and the men of Qumran, although there are some who seriously dispute this. The Qumran community may well have been a special sect within the Essene movement, which would account for the similarities and differences between the evidence from the scrolls and that from Josephus. The main divergences concern the regulations for admittance.
The Essenes were a separatist group who regarded the Jerusalem Temple worship as corrupt. Their monasticism was therefore essentially a protest. They were as devoted to the law as the Pharisees, but in a different way. They were, in fact, more stringent. There were rigorous rules for the government of the group, as the Rule of the Community or Manual of Discipline shows. There were severe penalties for any offense against the community. The organization was equally rigid, but the details need not be repeated. The purpose is to show what possible contribution the Qumran evidence can make to the understanding of the mission of Jesus, and the following considerations may be noted:
The absence from the Gospel records of any reference to contact between Jesus and the men of Qumran is not surprising. Qumran was essentially a monastic order to which men withdrew to escape involvement in the contemporary Jewish world. The ministry of Jesus, therefore, passed it by. Yet the movement points to a real dissatisfaction within Judaism with current religious life and enables a better understanding to be made of the protests of Jesus Himself against the Pharisees and Sadducees. Moreover, the teaching of Jesus in some aspects possessed greater affinity with Essenism than with the other groups. As far as the Essenic doctrine is concerned, an interesting factor was the belief in two Messiahs, a Messiah of Aaron and a Messiah of Israel. Since the Messiah of Aaron takes precedence, it no doubt arose from the conception of Qumran as a priestly community. In itself the Messianism of this community contributes little to the understanding of the Messianic claims of Jesus.
Of more importance is the place of the Covenant in the community. The members were men of the New Covenant, and each man had to signify annually his allegiance to it. It was really a reaffirmation of the Old Covenant which contrasts with the New Covenant inaugurated by Jesus. His presentation of the Covenant was in line with the prediction of Jeremiah (Jer 31).
There has been much discussion regarding the Teacher of Righteousness who is often mentioned in the Qumran lit. He may well have been the founder of the community. He was certainly highly esteemed, esp. for his exposition of Scripture. Some scholars (such as J. L. Teicher), maintain that the title is describing Jesus, but this view is generally discounted. Unlike Jesus, the Teacher of Righteousness was not regarded as the subject of OT prophecies, nor was he regarded as the Messiah. Although no connection can be established, the striking parallel between this Teacher and Jesus the Teacher, who came to impart righteousness, cannot pass unnoticed. It shows that there were elements in Judaism which were reaching out toward greater purity.
The men of Qumran were deeply conscious of forces opposing the truth, as is seen particularly in the references to the Wicked Priest. It is also apparent in the strong antitheses which are found in the modes of thought. The community members are sons of light engaging in battle with the sons of darkness. Truth is in conflict with error. This is of special importance as a background against which to place the Johannine portrait of Jesus. No longer can the antitheses which are so characteristic of John’s gospel be ascribed to Hellenism, without taking fully into account the syncretism which before the time of Jesus had already taken place within the Essene branch of Judaism.
d. The Zealots. These belonged to a religious political movement which opposed payment of tribute to a heathen emperor on the grounds that allegiance was due only to God. The movement began as a revolt in a.d. 6 under Judas the Galilean and continued its activities until after the siege of Jerusalem. It played an important part in resistance against the Rom. occupation. Its last stonghold, Masada, fell in a.d. 73. One of the twelve apostles is named Simon the Zealot; whether the adjective was added simply to describe his zeal or as an indication of his association with the political party is not known. The theory that Jesus Himself was associated with the Zealots (so S. F. D. Brandon) may be discounted, not only because it lacks evidence, but because it is impossible to interpret the words of Jesus as the words of a political enthusiast. Jesus left Rome severely alone. His mission was spiritual, not national.
III. Various approaches to the life of Christ
A. The traditional approach. Although the available sources are insufficient to construct a biography of Jesus in the modern sense of the term, the traditional approach to the sources has always maintained that the data is adequate for some appreciation of the Jesus of history. It had always been assumed, until the rise of 18th cent. rationalism challenged it. The large amount of space devoted to the passion and resurrection narratives was no problem for those who saw no discrepancy between historical Jesus and the Christ of faith. Primitive Christian belief fastened on the importance of Christ’s death and Resurrection, abundantly proved by the Acts and epistles within the NT. The apparently lopsided arrangement of material in both the synoptic gospels and in John bears witness to the major content of the early Christian faith. It was not unreasonable to suppose that if so important an element of faith was accurately reflected in the evangelist’s arrangement, the rest of the material should be regarded as equally historical.
Certain difficulties were nonetheless recognized. Some explanation had to be given of the instances where apparent disagreements occurred within the synoptic gospels or between the synoptic gospels and John. The traditional approach to such problems was harmonistic. Since it was maintained that there could be no discrepancy within the inspired records, it must be possible to reconcile apparent contradictions. Many of these harmonistic attempts were more ingenious than convincing. When, for instance, it was maintained (e.g. by Osiander) that Jairus’ daughter must have been resurrected more than once because the incident is placed in a different sequence within the synoptic gospels, the improbability of such a solution becomes at once apparent. It was the weakness of much of the traditional approach to the gospels that it tended to overstress some feature, such as the order of events, without sufficient examination of the validity of the basic assumptions. Dogmatic considerations were more important than historical, with the consequence that the older traditionalists exposed themselves to rationalistic attacks. Until that time there had been no question about the validity of the miraculous. The Christ of faith was so deeply entrenched in the religious concepts that it was perfectly reasonable to suppose that He had power over the natural world to such a degree that in His hands the abnormal became normal.
The advantage of such an approach is obvious. All the gospels may without question be treated as historical sources and the main preoccupation of any scholar producing an outline of the life of Jesus is to discover the best method of harmonizing the accounts. Since John’s account presupposes a longer period of ministry than the synoptics, it has been the usual procedure of traditionalists to fit the synoptic outlines as far as possible into the Johannine structure. This traditional approach to the sources has been attacked on several fronts during the last cent. and a half of criticism. It is essential to have some insight into the grounds for these attacks to appreciate the position of modern criticism in its approach to the historical Jesus.
B. The rationalistic approach. Rationalism showed its attack upon the gospel material in the deistic renunciation of miracles as support for Jesus’ claims to messiahship. This antipathy toward the miraculous has been characteristic of rationalism ever since and has affected many schools of thought which have had little in common with the basic tenets of deism. It was an attack on the supernatural element, and once the miraculous was pronounced either impossible or suspect it was essential to view with suspicion other elements in any sources which treated the miraculous as normal. This was the starting point for Ger. critical appraisals of the historical Jesus. Whatever in the gospels did not square with the assumption that the supernatural interpretation of the life of Jesus was impossible, must be excised from the records as later interpolations. Such was the rationalistic impact on the sources of the life of Jesus. It was not surprising, therefore, that the 19th cent. was to see a whole crop of unhistorical “histories” of Jesus, many of them almost wholly fictitious.
Before the dawn of the 19th cent. H. Reimarus had produced a book in which he regarded the Resurrection of Jesus as an invention of the apostles, who themselves inaugurated a community to await the return of Christ. To avoid possible exposure they stole the body of Jesus. This kind of approach won no support in Reimarus’ own time, but was a precursor of the eschatological theory of A. Schweitzer more than a cent. later. Reimarus made no attempt to come to grips with the Johannine problem. He preferred the synoptic gospels and imposed his fraud theory on them. During the 19th cent. many others were either to reject or to ignore the Johannine account.
Attempts were next made to write historical accounts of Jesus from the standpoint of the contemporary climate of opinion. There was no hesitation in making Jesus speak as nearly as possible in rationalistic forms. Modifications of both sayings and events were unrestrained. Representatives of this tendency were J. J. Hess and F. V. Reinhard. Another who illustrates the awakening of the critical faculties in relation to the sources of the life of Jesus is J. G. Herder, who considered it to be impossible to harmonize the synoptic gospels with John, and who treated the latter as something of a protest against the former.
It was H. E. G. Paulus who presented the most thorough-going rationalistic approach to the gospels, for he regarded the miracles as due to the eyewitnesses’ ignorance of the laws of nature. This left him free to explain away the miraculous. Such incidents as the raisings of the dead were described as “deliverances from primitive burial.” This is even alleged of the Resurrection of Jesus. His basic skepticism has often since been reflected in other theories.
A rather modified view of the gospel miracles is seen in the life of Jesus written by K. Hase, or he had a higher regard for the Johannine miracles than those of the synoptics. Again the impossibility of accepting both accounts is assumed. A similar position was taken by F. E. D. Schleiermacher. Although less avowedly rationalistic than Paulus, he nevertheless shows the influence of the latter upon him in his explanation of the Resurrection as recovery from a state of suspended animation. None of the synoptic gospels, in his opinion, presents historical facts. There is no doubt that his view of these gospels was governed by his preconceived idea of Christ.
C. The mythological approach. It was the radical criticism of David Strauss which marked a turning point in Ger. approaches to the life of Jesus. He followed Hegel’s philosophy and this governed his attitude to the sources. He was not hesitant to interpret the events mythologically. Anything inexplicable to Strauss was treated as myth. It is not surprising that the result was radical. Many of the mythical elements he traced to OT motives. John’s gospel he regarded as apologetic and therefore inferior to the others. But the latter contained much composite material due to the influence of the church upon the tradition. Although his opinions were too radical for his own age, they set the pattern for later developments, both in the views of liberal critics and in the ideas of the later form critics.
Strauss’ skepticism bore some fruit in the radical opinions of Bruno Bauer, who treated John’s gospel as an artistic product, and then transferred similar principles of criticism to the synoptic gospels. His conclusion was that the records were the conceptions of evangelists woven around the historical personality of Jesus. After an interval Bauer reached the logical conclusion of denying the historicity of Jesus.
D. The sentimental approach. Ernest Renan’s life may be described as imaginative rather than skeptical. It was certainly not historical, for Renan appealed to aesthetic taste rather than to fact. He treated the whole story as a dramatist would a play. The Jesus he produced was a Jesus of his own creation.
E. The liberal lives of Jesus. The heyday of liberal criticism produced its crop of interpretations, the purpose of which was to discover and present the historical Jesus apart from the dogmatic presentations of Christ. A typical example of this point of view may be found in H. Holtzmann’s book on the synoptic gospels. In this he propounded a theory for the life of Jesus based on Mark, in which he drew a distinction between the earlier period of success and the later period of decline. This idea exercised a strong influence on the liberal lives of Jesus during this period. Holtzmann was not adverse to drawing from both the synoptic and the Johannine traditions.
Adolf Harnack’s interpretation of Christianity was governed by his acceptance of the socalled historical figure of Jesus of Nazareth whose main function was to found the kingdom of God on earth, and whose death did no more than set the seal on this mission. The result was that the portrait of Jesus was conformed to the contemporary pattern of 19th cent. life. In spite of the attempt to arrive at a historical presentation, the principles of criticism which these liberal scholars followed did not enable them to produce an objective account. It must be recognized that these principles were affected by the earlier rationalism, the attempt to pass all the gospel material through the sieve of what is intelligible to reason. Yet, there can be no doubt that these liberal interpreters of Jesus were convinced of the historicity of their account. Christianity became a matter of conformity to the ethics of Jesus, and by that fact it had ceased to be a Gospel.
F. Various nineteenth century British approaches. Some British scholars followed closely in the wake of Ger. criticism, of whom the most notable was perhaps F. W. Farrar, The Life of Christ (1886). There was no tendency to discriminate between the synoptics and John, as among the Germans, although the emphasis was essentially upon the Jesus of history. Among the more conservative works may be mentioned the valuable work of A. Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah (1883), which provided many insights into the Jewish background and is the ablest attempt to integrate the synoptic and Johannine traditions. He made no attempt to differentiate between the Christ of faith and the Jesus of history. In much the same vein may be mentioned W. Sanday’s article on Jesus Christ in Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible. These British representatives at the close of the 19th cent. show how little the Ger. movements had affected the mainstream of opinion relating to the historical Jesus, but the 20th cent. tells a rather different story.
G. Twentieth century viewpoints
1. The eschatological movement. Albert Schweitzer’s book, Von Reimarus zu Wrede (1906), tr. into English under the title of The Quest of the Historical Jesus (1910), created a sensation. It gave a penetrating analysis of the inadequacies of the rationalistic and liberal approaches and then presented the theory that only from an eschatological point of view could a true history of Jesus be written. Schweitzer’s eschatology was of his own making. He conceived that the dominating factor in the history of Jesus was his firm belief in the imminent establishment of the kingdom. He rejected Wilhelm Wrede’s idea of the Messianic secret (Das Messiasgeheimnis in den Evangelein [1901]), and maintained that Jesus’ hopes were frustrated. The cross was the failure of the mission of Jesus. All that remained of the Jesus of history was the example of His noble purpose which never came to anything. Even the ethics of Jesus was only an interim measure and therefore possessed no abiding validity.
Schweitzer’s counterblast to the liberal Jesus was no less unhistorical. His strange eschatological blunderer was not the Jesus who lived and taught in Pal. The difference between Schweitzer and the liberals was that whereas the latter sought to dress Jesus in modern garb, the former sought to put Him back into a 1st cent. wholly apocalyptic milieu. Neither viewpoint came to grips with the real problem of how their interpretation of Jesus contributed to an understanding of what came to be the place of Jesus in the historic Christian faith. There is no doubt that Schweitzer’s hypothesis gained more support than it would have done because of the aridity of the previous liberal theories. As Hugh Anderson has said, “By his tremendous stress on the non-advent of the Parousia, for the inauguration of which and for nothing else Jesus died in vain, Schweitzer helped to pave the way for recent versions of the primitive Church’s Christology which left no place therein for faith in the historical Jesus as the decisive revelation of God for the past as well as for the present” (Jesus and Christian Origins [1964], 21, 22).
2. The dialectical approach. Another major 20th cent. trend is seen in Karl Barth’s dialectical theology. This movement was contemporary with that of Rudolf Bultmann in its origin. Both men were reared in the same theological climate, both being taught by the same liberal teachers. They both belonged to the Religionsgeschichte (History of Religions) school, which believed in the broadest basis for the study of the life of Jesus in the context of an examination of comparative religions. Those who exercised most influence upon both Barth and Bultmann were determined to eliminate from the sources of the life of Jesus whatever belonged to the dogmatic theology of the Christian Church. These liberal scholars concentrated on the immanence of God in Jesus in a way which saw in Jesus only the exaltation to the highest possible degree of what is potential in every man. There was an absence of all thought of the divine transcendence of Jesus, and it was this that challenged Barth.
In one sense, Barth has not entered into the literary problems surrounding the sources of the life of Jesus, but he strongly reacted against the liberal idea of the historical Jesus. By concentrating on the NT texts and rejecting the possibility of going behind them, Barth went some way toward counteracting the approach to the texts which characterized the earlier critics. Barth’s doctrine of the Word within Scripture allowed him freedom in his treatment of the Biblical text. What he insists upon is a theological rather than a historical exegesis. Any attempt to reconstitute the historical Jesus as the liberals had done is no part of the Christian faith as Barth understands it. Yet he does not dispute that the object of the Church’s faith must be related to the past. Jesus was distinctive as compared with other men “in His inescapability, in His critical function, in His unforgettable lordliness, in His irrevocability which bursts and transcends all the limits of His life and time” (Church Dogmatics IV, part 2, 156ff.). This is not the place to expand on the theology of Barth. It suffices to show that Barth differs from his contemporary Bultmann in by-passing the problems of literary origins, with which the latter has been so closely concerned in his reaction to the same liberalism in which both were reared. Bultmann has retained more of the essential spirit of liberalism than Barth.
3. The form critical approach. Bultmann’s position must be considered within the context of an examination of the whole form-critical movement, of which he is representative of that section which attaches least historical validity to the sources. Form criticism is a movement which derived its main impulse from the failure of a rigid application of source criticism to solve the problems of the gospels. It was a method which had previously been developed to get behind the sources proposed for OT criticism.
H. Gunkel’s attempt to reduce the pre-literary oral material to some sort of classification by means of different forms in which the material was preserved provided a method which appeared serviceable for NT criticism. The most that source criticism could do was to posit sources which were no earlier than thirty years after the events related, and it was naturally considered important to attempt to fill in the gap. The main objectives were still within the field of scientific historical inquiry. Form criticism as a literary discipline belongs essentially to the period of liberal approaches to the life of Jesus, although in some of its developments, most notably in the hands of Bultmann, it became a tool to be used against the concept of the historical Jesus. This was possible because Bultmann went beyond the purely literary idea of form criticism and developed from it the form-historical method. To make clear this important distinction, the two main schools of form criticism will be considered, irrespective of the chronological development, classification being dependent on whether it is used to support historical evaluation or not.
The real focus of attention was upon Mark’s gospel. It had been assumed by the Jesus-of-history school that Mark’s account was basically historical and that whatever material could be fitted in from the other synoptic gospels was acceptable. The liberal representation of Jesus was therefore very much tied up with Mark’s gospel. When Wrede challenged the historicity of Mark by his theory of the Messianic secret, the whole hypothesis of the historical Jesus was also challenged. Wrede maintained that Mark had preserved no chronological sequence and that the material of the gospel had originally existed as unconnected units. Whatever unity there was in the record had been imposed upon it by Mark, who had made it appear that Jesus claimed to be the Messiah and was recognized as such by the disciples, although in Wrede’s view this did not happen until after the Resurrection of Jesus. The stage was therefore set for a more radical re-interpretation of the gospel narratives in the light of editorial processes which were conditioned by the Easter event. This particular trend was to play an important part in Bultmann’s theory of form criticism.
The unitary view of the Markan material was further stressed by such scholars as J. Wellhausen (Einleitung in die drei ersten Evangelien [1905]) and K. L. Schmidt (Der Rahmen der Geschichte Jesu [1919]). The former contended that Mark’s gospel was overlaid by editorial additions, which it was necessary to excise if the historical material was to be laid bare. The latter maintained the unreliability of Mark’s chronological and geographical data and consequently challenged the possibility of producing a connected account of the life of Jesus.
In 1919 Martin Dibelius published a book entitled Die Formgeschichte des Evangeliums in which he analyzed various forms of gospel material according to the use to which it had been put in the period of oral transmission. Since this was essentially a missionary period, Dibelius found the Sitz im Leben (the situation in the life of the Church) of the various forms in the needs of the different types of church workers &--; preachers, teachers, and narrators. Such forms as paradigms, short narratives concluding with an important saying, would be valuable for preachers, while teachers concerned with the catechizing of new converts would use sayings which were unattached to narratives and varied in subject matter, which would be matched to the practical needs of the communities. Narrators would relate tales, often of a supernatural character, which were either created by or at least embellished by the narrators. Other categories of forms proposed by Dibelius were legends and myths, the first being material about holy people paralleled in secular writings; and the second, material in which some mythological interchange took place (e.g., the Temptation and the Transfiguration). It will at once be seen that the sources for the life of Jesus have therefore been subjected to influences which have introduced many non-historical elements. Nevertheless, Dibelius did not, as Bultmann did, deny the possibility of an historical account of Jesus. At the same time, his postulation of different classes of people using different forms of material is highly unlikely and accordingly weakens his theory. Moreover, it is clear that he has done more than classify the forms; he has evaluated them and in so doing has used his own criteria. The miraculous element is not attributed to the supernatural but to the composition of the storytellers, who wished to heighten the appeal of the tales they were telling.
A more moderate approach may be seen in the work of M. Albertz, B. S. Easton, and Vincent Taylor. Albertz (Die synoptischen Streitgesprache: ein Beitrag zur Formengeschichte des Urchristentums [1921]) admitted that the Church had adapted the original traditions, but nevertheless strongly maintained the possibility of arriving at a concept of the historical Jesus. It is important to note that Ger. criticism had other voices contemporary with Bultmann which did not agree with his approach toward history in the gospels.
B. S. Easton (The Gospel Before the Gosples [1928]) treated form criticism essentially as a literary discipline. Although he admitted that the traditions had been influenced by ecclesiastical and apologetic motives, he declined to use the classification of forms in the assessment of the historicity of the material.
Vincent Taylor (The Formation of the Gospel Tradition [1935]) is a representative of that school of form criticism which sees a limited value in the discipline, but is strongly opposed to the skepticism so characteristic of Bultmann’s theories. He rightly calls attention to the existence of eyewitnesses which must have exerted a powerful restraining influence upon the creation of non-historical elements in the tradition and provided some guarantee of the historicity of the material which has been preserved. It is significant that Vincent Taylor declines to accept the right of form critics, on the basis of their method of criticism, to deny the miraculous. The determination of the validity or otherwise of the miracle stories belongs not to the literary but to the historical critic. Compared with the exponents of radical form criticism, Vincent Taylor is moderate, for he believes in the actuality of the historical Jesus. In fact, his trilogy on Christ (The Names of Jesus [1953], The Life and Ministry of Jesus [1954], and The Person of Christ in New Testament Teachings [1958]) shows an approach which seeks to combine the Jesus of history with the Christ of faith. Such moderate use of form criticism clearly puts him in a different camp from Dibelius and Bultmann.
The same may be said of some other British scholars who have partially used form critical methods, while at the same time rejecting some of its assumptions. C. H. Dodd (New Testament Studies [1953]), for instance, staunchly maintains the reliability of the chronological structure of Mark on the grounds of the evidence of Acts, which counteracts the notion of Mark as a collection of disconnected units. When using form criticism, his main interest is to discover how far the different forms can be employed in verifying the historicity of the material. Although he does not conclude for the historicity of all the material, he sees beneath the interpretive elements a substantial basis of historic fact. He seems to stand midway between the older liberalism and the newer Christ-of-faith school.
Another in the same tradition, but even more insistent on the historicity of the Markan account, was T. W. Manson (Studies in the Gospels and Epistles [1962]). He not only maintained the reliability of the Markan outline, but vigorously resisted the skepticism of the radical form critics. He correctly pointed out that there was less credibility in the form critical suppositions than in the gospel accounts. He believed that it was possible to arrive at the facts of the life of Jesus from the gospel sources and to make some kind of chronological reconstruction. He did not, however, cling to a purely historical quest, for he recognized that a historical reconstruction would be meaningless apart from the early Christian belief in Jesus as the object of faith. He was reluctant to create an antithesis between history and faith.
4. The existential approach. It was quite different with Bultmann, whose dissatisfaction with the liberal attempts to produce a history of Jesus turned his attention toward the Christ of faith. It will be necessary to consider his point of view in more detail since it has had a profound influence over European thought regarding Jesus Christ, and has not lacked support in British and American circles. Bultmann’s approach to the records is via the kerygma, i.e., the proclamation of the resurrected Christ. It would not be true to say that Bultmann denies the historicity of Jesus, although he comes nearer to this at times than he himself is prepared specifically to admit. He considers that all that can be asserted without question is the “thatness,” the bare fact, of the cross of Christ. It is difficult to think intelligently of a bare “thatness” which is unrelated to a historical personality of whom at least something can be historically known. In any case, this is a different kind of kerygma from what the early Christians proclaimed. Nevertheless, Bultmann has performed a valuable service in drawing attention to the problem of the connection between the historical Jesus and the Christ of faith, even if his own solution proves to be totally unacceptable. The Jesus of history can become a living factor in each era of the Christian Church only if it is possible to establish the connection between Him and the faith of each era. Bultmann’s probing goes deeper than that, for he maintains that since no connection is possible, there is no point in pursuing the historical Jesus at all. Cf. for Bultmann’s views, his Jesus and the Word (Eng. tr. 1926) and Form Criticism (with K. Kundsin, Eng. tr. 1934).
a. Influences upon Bultmann. (1) The history of religion school. To understand Bultmann’s methods it is necessary to be aware of influences which have had a share in the molding of them. The liberal background to which he belonged was dominated by Reitzenstein’s theory that primitive Christianity drew much from the mystery cults (Die hellenistischen Mysterienreligionen [1927]), and by Bousset’s Kyrios Christos (3rd. ed. 1926), which maintained that Jesus was Lord, not Messiah, to Gentile Christians. While these theories had more effect on Bultmann’s appoach to Pauline theology, they are not unimportant for his theory of gospel origins, since, if true, they must find a place in his idea of the kerygma among Gentile Christians.
Acceptance of the view that mystery religions and Gnostic myths were a molding factor in early Christian doctrine disposes the exegete to search for pagan parallels to account for the form, if not the content, of some of the gospel materials. Careful examination, however, shows that most of the parallels are tenuous. Can it be accepted as a legitimate method of exegesis to attribute anything remotely resembling a pagan parallel to such a source? Reitzenstein’s evidence is drawn from a much later period, which makes it difficult to place any reliance upon it. As far as Gnosticism is concerned, when this became a powerful 2nd cent. movement, it met with strong resistance from the Christian Church. Had there been a close kinship between it and Christianity, it is impossible to see why this kinship was unrecognized.
Any presupposition of a distinction so radical between Palestinian and Hellenistic Christianity must inevitably affect assessment of historical data. The presupposition is unsupported by adequate evidence. The most damaging objection is the failure to recognize the uniqueness, not only of Christ Himself, but of the Church whose faith was based in Him. This was the ineradicable weakness of the whole religionsgechichtliche school.
(2) Existential philosophy. Another important influence upon Bultmann which has affected his approach to the history of Jesus has been the philosophy of Heidegger. It is Bultmann’s conviction that an existential encounter with Christ is of paramount importance in Christian faith, and this led him to play down the historical Jesus. Even though little of the true history of Jesus is available, this existential encounter can take place. Such a presupposition naturally conditioned Bultmann in his estimation of the gospel material. There is no doubt that his purpose was to make that material relevant to his contemporaries and this led him to exclude anything which to his mind belonged to the 1st cent., but was irrelevant or unacceptable to the 20th.
b. Some basic assumptions. Bultmann, in the treatment of his sources, proceeded on the assumption that there are definite laws governing popular narrative and tradition. He first supposed that narratives in course of oral transmission tend to become more explicit and to acquire details lacking in the most primitive form. For example, Luke’s mention of the high priest’s servant’s right ear which was struck off is said to show a development from Mark’s accoun