An Example of Recurrent Attestation

Dale Allison has argued for a criterion of recurrent attestation.  These are themes, ideas, and elements that occur across a wide variety of materials and give a certain impression of the historical Jesus.  Allison gives the following as an example:

• The temptation narrative, in which Jesus bests the devil (Mark 1:12-13; Matt 4:1-11 par. Luke 4:1-13)
• Stories of successful exorcism (Mark 1:21-28; 5:1-20; 7:24-30; 9:14-27; Matt 12:22-23 par. Luke 11:14; Matt 9:32-34; cf. the passing notices of successful exorcisms in Mark 1:32, 34, 39; 3:22; Matt 8:16; Luke 13:32)
• Jesus’ authorization of disciples to cast out demons (Mark 3:15; 6:7; cf. 6:13; Matt 7:22; Luke 10:19-20)
• The saying about Satan being divided (Mark 3:23-27; Matt 12:25-27 par. Luke 11:17-19)
• The parable of binding the strong man (Mark 3:27; Matt 12:29 par. Luke 11:21-22; Gos. Thom. 35)
• The story of someone other than a disciple casting out demons in Jesus’ name (Mark 9:38-41)
• The declaration that Jesus casts out demons by the finger/Spirit of God (Matt 12:28 par. Luke 11:20)
• The report of Jesus' vision of Satan falling like lightning from heaven (Luke 10:18)
• The announcement that the ruler of the world has been driven out (John 12:31; 16:11; cf. 14:30)

 According to Allison, “one infers from all this material not only that Jesus was an exorcist but also that he and others saw his ministry in its entirety as a victorious combat with Satan. This holds, whatever one makes of the individual units, at least some of which may be difficult to think of as historical. What counts is not the isolated units but the pattern they weave, or the larger images they form.”

Coming out of Retirement - Recurrent Attestation

So I'm coming out of retirement, I hope. And the first thing I'd like to do is note something I explored some time ago [2005] about what Dale Allison has recently called "recurrent attestation." I'll explore this more in an upcoming blog...

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Stephen Patterson, in his book The God of Jesus: The Historical Jesus and the Search for Meaning offers an interesting idea, borrowed from R. W. Funk, about typifications. Patterson in explaining the problem caused by judging which events or deeds of Jesus are in fact historical, writes:

The best provisional solution to this problem is to say simply that the deeds of Jesus present us with the creative memory of the church. In the Jesus Seminar, it was seldom that we could assert, even tenuously, the historical accuracy of any particular event or occasion as it is depicted in the gospels, or in fact, that such and such an event occurred at all. But we did notice that certain types of events are depicted with great frequency in the Jesus traditions, and across a variety of sources and forms. Things like healings and exorcisms, cavorting with the unclean and the shamed, conflict with his family - such things began to emerge as "typical" of Jesus in the widespread memory of the early church. Such typifications became the basis for a general description of the sort of things Jesus probably did, even though the historicity of any single story in the gospels was always hard to demonstrate.          Patterson, The God of Jesus, 57.

While I abhor many of the absurd presuppositions that the Jesus Seminar approach the gospels with when doing historical enquiry, this method seems to make much sense. We know for sure that the gospels don't record every single detail of the life of Jesus. Whatever we think of the historical value of John's gospel, his statement that Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book [or any other I might add] appears a priori valid. It seems axiomatic that the gospels are a sampled survey of all the things about Jesus and they are not in an exact diary collection of facts and data.

Could the deeds of Jesus be likened to the position of Darrell Bock who has argued that the sayings of Jesus recorded in the gospels are the "voice" of Jesus, and not the exact literal word for word dictation that many assume? Could we have echoes of the typical deeds of Jesus recorded in the gospels? Patterson notes that "the limits of ancient history are considerable, indeed."

Could this approach fit better with a critical realist epistemology, where certainty on any exact event [with a few notable exceptions such as the temple action, cross & resurrection, and perhaps a few others?] is unknown but the gist and typical features of Jesus' actions in healing, exorcism, interaction with Gentiles and Jews are known? The plausibility of this being the case seems almost certain given what we know about the limits and strengths of oral tradition as well. Maybe the memory of two separate encounters got blurred into one event [would that explain gospel differences better than or as well as editorial emphases?]

Wright notes that there is nothing to suggest that the sermon on the Mount and the sermon on the Plain are the same event. Jesus probably regularly gave a set piece of didactic speeches - Luke and Matt record summaries of them - in different locations because that was typical of Jesus teachings in various locations.

Thoughts? Comments? Criticisms? Are there any published critiques or advocates of this view? In my mind, which is now reeling over the possibilities, this could alter our conception of the criteria of authenticity and exegesis.

Happy Holidays Break

Greetings friends and fellow bloggers. Well, blogging has been slow these last few months. I've finished up the first half of my MTh, and am now in the process of writing courses for next year. So I've decided to take a bit of a break from blogging and return in the New Year. So to everyone, have a great break, take a rest, enjoy your friends and families and read some good books.

Ciao for now...

Church in a Workship?

McKinnish Bridges, in her recent commentary on the Thessalonian correspondence argues that the Church in Thessaloniki was composed of artisans who met in their workshop as a voluntary association.

If one imagines the community reading Paul’s words as a group of artisans linked by common vocation and workspace, is one able to understand this text more clearly? I believe so. The passages related to work, to community living, to physical labour have much more meaning when the community is visualised as a working community of manual labourers… The social world of artisans creates a new backdrop for understanding these letters. As I read Paul’s words, I see a community of skilled artisans who have gathered in their workroom to hear his letters read. They pause from their task, wipe the dust from their hands, and listen to their artisan-colleague, Paul, who in earlier days shared their same tools and workspace. In that context of dust and death, craft and faith, the members of the community learn how to live more closely in relationship to God and to one another.

See McKinnish Bridges, 1 & 2 Thessalonians, 8, 10.

It's a fascinating proposal that I'll be giving some careful thought.

To Know GOD!

James Merick has eloquently put what I have felt for a while now...

It says something terrible about the state of the discipline [contemporary theology] that it is utterly objective and scholarly, that one can be successful without ever having to pray, meditate upon Scripture, participate in the life of the church, serve the poor, counsel the downtrodden or just repent of one’s selfishness and become more loving. It is a blight against contemporary theology that the mark of success has to do with argumentation or even conformance to some tradition, intellectual or confessional, not holiness. That one can be considered a knowledgeable theologian without ever really having to be affected by the knowledge they have is at the very least curious for a discipline concerned with knowledge of the ultimate ontologically reality, God... Knowing God entails personal change, for one cannot truly know God without coming into active, transformative relationship to him. Theologians thus do not know various doctrines, even if they can argue compellingly for them, if their selves are not conformed, not taught by the content. Calvin thus recognized that theology is not only plagued by false gods or idolatry, but by false selves as well. For him, it is impossible to retain a false self and yet know God in truth. In this way, what makes for a successful theologian is not simply good intellectual traits, but, more fundamentally, virtue and piety. Theologians are those who do not simply pontificate and speculate about the truth for others, but above all those who have been personally taught by Truth, who have been grasped by the content of their task to the point of being conformed to it. True theologians do not fool themselves into thinking that theological problems are solved conceptually (in other words, enough babbling about the perils of capitalism and more getting on with providing relief to those who suffer from its oppression). True theologians don’t master their discipline, but are mastered by it, being moved not simply intellectually by thoughts, but personally by realities shorthanded by doctrines.

Jesus Interrupted

Michael Kruger, Associate Professor of NT and Academic Dean at RTS in Charlotte, NC, reviews Bart Ehrman’s Jesus Interrupted. Here’s the conclusion:

In the end, Jesus Interrupted can be best summarized as a book filled with ironies. Ironic that it purports to be about unbiased history but rarely presents an opposing viewpoint; ironic that it claims to follow the scholarly consensus but breaks from it so often; ironic that it insists on the historical-critical method but then reads the gospels with a modernist, overly-literal hermeneutic; ironic that it claims no one view of early Christianity could be “right” (Walter Bauer) but then proceeds to tell us which view of early Christianity is “right;” ironic that it dismisses Papias with a wave of the hand but presents the Gospel of the Ebionites as if it were equal to the canonical four; and ironic that it declares everyone can “pick and choose” what is right for them, but then offers its own litany of moral absolutes. Such intellectual schizophrenia suggests there is more going on in Jesus Interrupted than meets the eye. Though veiled in the garb of scholarship, this book is religious at the core. Ehrman does not so much offer history as he does theology, not so much academics as he does his own ideology. The reader does not get a post-religious Ehrman as expected, but simply gets a new-religious Ehrman–an author who has traded in one religious system (Christianity) for another (postmodern agnosticism). Thus, Ehrman is not out to squash religion as so many might suppose. He is simply out to promote his own. He is preacher turned scholar turned preacher. And of all the ironies, perhaps that is the greatest.

The Neglected Apostle

Given my research into all things Petrine, I'm really looking forward to this upcoming volume by the late Martin Hengel.

Saint Peter: The Underestimated Apostle (Paperback)~ Martin Hengel (Author), Thomas Trapp (Translator). Many biblical scholars treat the apostle Peter as a vague figure in the early church and regard the early tradition as something that cannot be trusted. In Saint Peter: The Underestimated Apostle Martin Hengel rejects the common minimalist view about Peter’s role in the Scriptures and in the early church. Arguing that Peter is wrongly underappreciated, Hengel shows that Peter was, in fact, central to developing both the Jewish and Gentile Christian missions. / Though Hengel’s work rests on meticulous scholarship, it is written in a manner that any interested reader will find clear and enlightening.

Reading an Apocalyptic Prophecy - Revelation

Revelation seems to be an apocalyptic prophecy in the form of a circular letter to seven churches in the Roman province of Asia. This is explicit in 1:11, what is revealed to John (what he 'sees') he is to write and send to the seven churches which are here named. This command applies to all the vision and revelations which follow in the rest of the book. The habit of referring to chapters 2-3 as the seven ‘letters’ to the churches is misleading. These are not as such letters but prophetic messages to each church. It is really the whole book of Revelation which is one circular letter to the seven churches. The seven messages addressed individually to each church are introductions to the rest of the book which is addressed to all seven churches. Thus we must try to do justice to the three categories of literature – apocalypse, prophecy and letter – into which Revelation seems to fall. [Bauckham, The Theology of the Book of Revelation, 2.]

The whole book of Revelation is a report of visionary revelation, but it also includes oracular prophecy within it. This occurs in the prologue (1:8) and the epilogue (22:12-13, 16, 20); the seven messages to the churches (2:1-3:22) are oracles written as Christ’s word to the churches; and also throughout the book (13:9-10; 14:13b; 16:15) there are prophetic oracles which interrupt the accounts of the visions. [Bauckham, The Theology of the Book of Revelation, 3.]

Phil 2:5-11 as Pattern

ilThe life of Christ shows that the way up is by stepping down, that the way to gain for oneself is by giving up oneself, that the way to life is by death, and that the way to win the praise of God is by steadfastly serving others. The teaching of Jesus during his years on earth was articulated not only by the words he spoke but by the life he lived… In his humility, Jesus did what he asked others to do. And it was his great act of humility that was sung about by the church as its members met together to worship and praise him who is now exalted to the highest station in heaven. Placing the Christ-hymn precisely in this place in his letter, Paul simply wants to say, “Follow this example, pattern your life after his life.” Imitation of Christ, then, is the pattern of discipleship in Philippians.[1]

[1] G. F. Hawthorne, “The Imitation of Christ: Discipleship in Philippians.” in Patterns of Discipleship in the New Testament Edited by R. N. Longenecker (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 169.

A Christological Paradigm

When the first hearers of Matthew’s Gospel heard Jesus’ call to suffer rather than to inflict suffering, to accept death rather than to inflict death, to reject all efforts to save themselves from their plight by military action and to leave their deliverance to God, they knew that the one who gave such scandalous instruction had himself lived and died in accord with that call.

Gene Davenport, Into the Darkness: Discipleship and the Sermon on the Mount (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1988), 15.