From Marcus_Borg@info.harpercollins.comTue Feb 27 16:17:22 1996 Date: Tue, 27 Feb 1996 13:46:09 -0800 From: "Marcus J. Borg" To: Jesus2000@info.harpercollins.com Subject: Jesus at 2000 -Forwarded Dear Luke (with Dom listening in), Luke, let me begin by acknowledging that it is difficult to know how to respond. On the one hand, I find myself agreeing with much of what you say. On the other hand, we are perceived as opponents in a scholarly brawl marked by heated rhetoric. Accordin g to your book and articles, Crossan and I are among those seeking to destroy Christianity, as well as being naive and incompetent historians. And, to raise the issue of style and substance which you mentioned in passing, is the character and tone of you r accusations simply a matter of style? It does make for an interesting exchange. We might not be doing this otherwise, though I'm not sure I want to invoke providence at this point. Let me begin by responding to two particulars before I move to what seems most central. 1. I agree with your frequent references to the importance of the resurrection. And I like the ways you speak about it: Jesus "as a living presence to the world even to this day;" it is "the experience of the risen Jesus through the power of the Holy Spi rit, through the continuing religious experiences of people in the world;" and "Jesus' presence continues in a way more powerful than mere memory or reonstruction." I look forward to further conversation about Good Friday and Easter as this interchange o f messages moves toward the end of Lent. For now, I will ask only about your statement (in the context of refuting Crossan's argument) that your "strong" understanding of the resurrection affirms "the value of the body and the world." Question: for that "valuing" to occur (and for this affirmat ion to count against the suggestion that you are gnostic), must the PHYSICAL body of Jesus have been raised? Put differently: does "valuation of the body" depend upon something happening to the corpse of Jesus? I agree with you that the biblical tradition as a whole values the body and the world - but does it make sense to ground this in the resurrection of Jesus (rather than, e.g., in the doctrine of creation)? And does grounding this in the resurrection REQUI RE a particular understanding of the resurrection (namely, as involving the raising or transformation of the PHYSICAL body?) Note that the question is not so much about whether you think the physical body of Jesus was raised/transformed, but whether such physicality is required in order for you to say that the resurrection of Jesus affirms "the value of the body and the world"? 2. Your five-step description of how we historical Jesus scholars proceed strikes me as accurate (as long as it is also understood that we study historical context as much as we do the Jesus traditions themselves). And you grant that steps four and five make sense once steps one and two are done. So steps one and two are central. The first of these is that I (we) should have begun our study of Jesus with Paul. If Paul reported any significant number of sayings of Jesus, or any particular deeds, we would have. But Paul doesn't (with few exceptions), as you grant. Nevertheless, y ou might suggest (as you do) that we we should have begun with the pattern we see in Paul: Jesus as one who gave his life in loving service. I find that in the gospels, as you do. I also find it in Paul (and I am not among those who see Paul as a radica l distortion of Jesus). But why is it a mistake to find it in the gospels apart from Paul? It seems to me that seeing it in both the gospels and Paul, considered independently, underlines its centrality, rather than suggesting a flaw in method. Step two I won't say much about, except to note that IF one is going to do historical reconstruction, then the narrative structure of the gospels must itself be an object of critical study. I think you would agree that no mainline scholar thinks the sequ ence of pericopes in the gospels corresponds to sequence in the life of Jesus (with major exceptions, such as the relationship with John the Baptizer belonging near the beginning, and death/Easter stories at the end). Thus I see objection two as a sub-se t of the larger question, "Is historical reconstruction of Jesus possible, useful, desirable?" One last point before I leave this. In your current E-mail piece and in your book, you say that in order to put the pieces back together, we Jesus scholars import models from elsewhere, and then describe my "model" of Jesus as "a charismatic." But that' s only one of four or five strokes in my sketch or "gestalt" (even though I see it as foundational). My others are healer, wisdom teacher (unconventional), social prophet, and movement initiator. It is thus a quite comprehensive sketch of Jesus; to reduc e it to one stroke is misleading. 3. I now turn to what seems to me to be the heart of the matter. Throughout your book and your E-mail contribution, I hear a sharp either/or. EITHER the historical Jesus (as reconstructed by historians) is normative, OR the canonical/narratival Jesus is normative. You say, "history ought not be equated with reality," and that "history is not the only way of knowing nor the supreme adjudicator of reality." (I agree). You find it odd that "historical reconstruction of Jesus" should not only be taken as his `reality' but also be determinative/normative for Christian belief" (which of us says that? All of us? Some of us?). I don't understand the need for the either/or, nor do I subscribe to it. In my work, I speak of BOTH the pre-Easter Jesus AND the post-Easter Jesus (the Jesus of Christian experience and tradition) as being of significance for Christians and Christian th eology. Nor do I subscribe to the assumption that history can be normative for faith (again, I have that odd feeling of agreeing with you, even as I also feel attacked). I have argued against the kind of "historical reductionism" that says that something must be historically true to be true. To use an example, I regularly say, "I don't think the virgin birth happened, but I think the stories of the virgin birth are powerfully true." So, I don't agree with the either/or of your approach. Beyond that, I want to say something about the helpfulness of historical reconstruction: there may be something about the modern period (which I am not distinguishing right now from "post-modern" or "beyond post-modern") which makes "good" history extremely helpful to Christians seeking to understand/affirm their tradition. We live in a time when doctrinal claims divorced from experience are suspect by people - when the canonical Jesus, presented as "the REAL Jesus" (I know what you mean by that, but it seems odd to define the narratival Jesus as "the real Jesus"), seems a barrier to seeing rather than a window or icon. Though there are many Christians who don't want or need to hear about the histo rical Jesus, I have also found that many Christians need to know (minimally) that they don't need to take all the details of the canonical Jesus historically. And they are curious about what lies behind the canonical Jesus. One final gambit to suggest why historical knowledge (reconstruction) is helpful. I use as my take-off point your statement that the history of a person is not the total (or selected) account of what s/he has done, but the pattern of their lives, their C HARACTER. In a general way, I agree. Then you say, "Jesus' character in the canonical gospels is as a man who in obedience to God gives his life in service to other humans." (The same notion is repeated two more times in your own contribution, as well as once in your response to the first w eek's entries, suggesting its centrality for you). I agree. And then I would add: but it's a considerable abstraction and generalization. It fits many people besides Jesus (and that's good); not only Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King, but also parents who in a time of famine give their food to their children, even though it means starving to death themselves. All of this is noble and greatly to be praised. But is the rest of what Jesus did and said - a more detailed account - irrelevant? Would his life have been just as significant if he had, e.g., like the parents mentioned above, starved to death because of giving all of his food to famished people? Or is it significant that he didn't just die in service to others, but was killed because of his passion for the "least of these"? Does not your characterization of the real Jesus, unless you expand it with historical claims, domesticate Jesus by depriving his words and deeds of their world-challenging edge? There is the historical Jesus and there is "the mythic Jesus" (a phrase which you come close to using). By "the mythic Jesus," I mean something very positive (as I assume you do). Myths are stories about the relationship between "this world" and "the sa cred"; and they can be true. The "mythic Jesus" is the narratival portrait of one who was the incarnation of God becoming the light in our darkness, becoming our liberator from the powers, becoming the manifestation of God's love for us; it includes the c redal Jesus (whom you mention in the context of "myth"). For me, this is a "true myth." And my claim is that both "the mythic Jesus" and the pre-Easter Jesus (Jesus as we can glimpse him through historical reconstruction) matter. But I wonder if only t he mythic Jesus matters for you? And if so, are we back to the issue which Crossan raised: what is the connection to history?