The Quest of the Historical Jesus

"Yes, this book is nearly 120 years old, but I would put it top of my list of the classics. The reason I chose it is because it’s mainly about what other people have made of Jesus. I think to get at Jesus through what other people have made of him is the best way of going about it. If I were writing a book on Jesus, that’s how I would go about it, and the way Schweitzer did it is marvelous. Then he gives his own account of Jesus, which is partly wrong, I think. But that doesn’t matter. It’s still brilliant and stimulating and exciting. And he’s also a childhood hero: He was the missionary doctor in Africa from 1913 to 1965. We were brought up to admire him. Yes, and one rather earlier. Reimarus died in 1768 and was part published by Lessing in 1774-8. Liberal theologians disliked dogma or the doctrine, even though the Gospels are themselves interpretations. They wanted to get behind them to Jesus as he really was. But they can only give their own interpretations. Even their own historical accounts of how they think he really was, are interpretations. Schweitzer argued they were reading a lot of their own 19th century perspectives into Jesus’s teaching. Schweitzer says, ‘No. Jesus was totally and utterly and completely different. He was more like Nietzsche’s superman. He was expecting the end of the world and he was completely wrong.’ That’s an oversimplification about what Jesus thought about the future. Schweitzer’s accounts of all the other people are wonderful but I don’t buy his own reconstruction. Somebody has to do a Schweitzer on Schweitzer himself. It’s what that might mean that’s difficult to get your hands on. I think Schweitzer was over-influenced by some newly discovered apocalyptic writings in the 19th century, and said, ‘Jesus must have been like that.’ It’s pretty clear to my mind that Jesus wasn’t like that. Even though one or two sayings do sound a bit like that, on the whole Jesus is much more of a prophet and a wisdom teacher. This nightmare scenario, of an apocalyptic end of the world like you get in the book of Revelation is really rather removed from my mental picture of Jesus. But that may be because I imagine the Jesus I love and want to follow. He points us to God. Jesus was all about God. Being about God means being about the meaning of life, about how the world is and our moral responsibilities, to save the planet and to love our neighbours. It’s got a very strong ethical or moral dimension. It’s also got a strong future hope, because what we think about the world and God has to do with how we think about the future. Yes, he does a bit. Schweitzer picks up on him saying—which I don’t think Jesus actually said—in Matthew 10, “You will not have gone through the cities of Israel before the Kingdom of God comes.” Like a number of sayings in the Gospels, I think that reflects a slightly later perspective of some people who did expect that end very soon, as Paul did. The reason historical pictures of Jesus differ is that we disagree to some extent about which sayings he actually said, and which ones he didn’t. Yes, and of course it’s only probability judgments. We can’t be certain. Like the rest of them, I have opinions about what he did say, and what he probably didn’t say. I would find it very difficult to pick one. I would pick about 30-40, among them the ones you picked out. The love commandment is certainly central. Attitudes to material possessions are important. The Sermon on the Mount contains a whole lot of things that he did say and one or two things that he probably didn’t. I’d include most of the Sermon on the Mount. Although we haven’t got much information about his personality, we get a sense of the human figure that has been an icon for Christians ever since. Most people agree he was a good man, and that he was unjustly executed. I think he probably saw his execution as following through what God was wanting of him. His self-giving love inspired others to live that way. Probably, or by people getting excited. The Jews as a whole didn’t, no. But how much the high priest, Caiaphas did, is a nice question. I think he probably was helped by one of the inner group of 12 disciples to make the arrest possible away from the crowds. You’ve got a Roman occupying army with a very volatile people who think they shouldn’t be there. They’re always having to monitor the political situation and they’re relying on the local stooges—like the high priest, the aristocracy—to keep a lid on things. Hundreds of thousands of people come to Jerusalem at Passover, there’s a risk of riots. You can read all about it in Josephus’s history of the Jewish war. They would naturally be nervy and what St. John’s Gospel says Caiaphas thought—We need to get him removed otherwise we’ll be in trouble with the Romans—might actually be how it was. But clearly his crucifixion was a Roman decision and carried out by Romans. The idea that the Jews killed Jesus is a grotesque defamation. Yes, I agree. I thought you were going to say being Dutch you were Calvinist. I would say the Church of England has plenty of humanism in it and Jesus has a lot of humanism in his teaching. Thomas Jefferson’s Bible—which is the bits he liked—is generally good humanism. So, yes there has got to be common ground in terms of moral values between Christianity and a lot of other people. But, at the end of the day, it’s what you make of God that is the ultimate decider and what you make of God is also what you make of yourself and the world, at least if the believer is well-informed about what the tradition means. That’s part of it, but it’s not the only part. And it’s ethics in a different context, and gets a different flavour, from being in a religious context. The sense of wonder is basic to religion, and, in that sense, a lot of humanists are probably more religious than they think. Ethics and philosophical ethics can be discussing moral principles without much sense of wonder about why there is a world at all. Ethics doesn’t have to be religious, but often ethics has been. It’s because I’ve gone for classics and up until quite recently the Germans have been the great pioneers. It was the 18th century Enlightenment. In France, it was often anti-religious, or anti-Catholic. In Germany, the Enlightenment was quite religious and quite Protestant and therefore German theology, like German philosophy, took on board the Enlightenment early on, and a big strand in German academic theology was infused with Enlightenment beliefs and values. In the early 18th century, English Deists were pioneers in criticism of the Bible and dogma, but in the 19th century all the leaders were German or German influenced. That remained roughly true till about 1970. With some exceptions, it’s only in the last 40 years that the Roman Catholics and Americans have made major contributions. Some did, but generally no. Unlike Roman Catholicism there was no mechanism for chucking you out if you were a Bible critic. The conservative side of the German church was hostile to Biblical criticism. But the German theological faculties in state universities had some independence while closely tied to the provincial churches. Theologians were able to follow the evidence as they saw it. They divided into different schools but the radicals were allowed to publish books and teach students who then became clergy. So the German church as a whole was open to Biblical criticism sooner than the Church of England. If you don’t read German, you miss out on a lot that hasn’t been translated which is very good. Greek is your starting point, because the New Testament is written in Greek. But the Old Testament is written mainly in Hebrew, so you’ve got to know Hebrew as well. Aramaic is tricky, because we don’t know all that much about 1st century Aramaic, and the experts sometimes disagree. Yes, probably. Most people in Palestine at that time would be speaking Aramaic. Jesus may have understood some Greek, and he would have understood Hebrew. But it was the Hellenistic age, Greek was the lingua franca and a few miles from Nazareth there were Greek towns. So Jesus would have heard Greek spoken and a couple of his disciples have Greek names: Andrew and Philip. Latin, not so much: The Roman authorities would have spoken Greek as well as Latin."