From John_Dominic_Crossan@info.harpercollins.comTue Feb 27 12:37:13 1996 Date: Tue, 27 Feb 1996 10:31:41 -0500 From: John Dominic Crossan To: JESUS2000@info.harpercollins.com Subject: Week 2, Response Message (Crossan) Dear Luke & Marcus: My response involves a shorter reply to each of your Week 1 Response Messages to me and then a longer one to Luke's Week 2 Primary Message. I have also read all the CrossTalk posts and my Preliminaries reflect that reading. PRELIMINARIES FIRST, this debate is not simply about the historical Jesus but about the relationship between the historical Jesus and Christian faith. A debate about the historical Jesus would be quite appropriate for another time and place (Jesus at 30?) but Jesus at 2000 is not its venue. I was invited to re-spond to Luke's book and BR article, as I noted at the start of my Week 1 Primary Message. Luke's thesis, as Marcus summarized it, is that "any (and every) historical reconstruction of the Jesus behind the gospels is a mistake." In Luke's own titular terms it is either "misguided" and/or "wrong." I responded by an opposing thesis using "necessary" against "misguided/wrong" and using "historical Jesus research" as a more precise term for "historical Jesus." SECOND, I have never used the term "real" Jesus but I accept Luke's definition of the term for this debate. It means the Jesus of "christian faith - that is as a living presence to the world even to this day." Were I myself to use the term "the real Jesus" I too would use it to mean the Jesus of 2000 years of Christian faith. 1. REPLY TO MARCUS' WEEK 1, RESPONSE MESSAGE. FIRST, the canonical or Catholic Christian gospels have a formal structure which involves the Je-sus of the late 20s (for short: "Jesus-then") speaking and acting directly into divergent times and places, situations and communities of the 70s, 80s, and 90s (for short: "Jesus-now"). But those quite divergent and extremely creative interactions do not differentiate between then and now by saying, for example, Jesus said or did this then BUT here is what it means for us now. They sim-ply have Jesus-then speak and act as Jesus-now. And, of course, such combinations of then/now are mutually interactive and necessarily multiple. That is not an aphorism. It is the simplest lan-guage I have to explain how I understand the logic of those gospels. As an example, I said that John has Jesus in total control of his own passion and has Jesus judge Pilate rather than the re-verse. It is, on the one hand, Jesus and Pilate (then) but, on the other, seen through a Christian community fighting for its future in a somewhat desperate situation (now). If you understand the canonical gospels differently, you will have to say so, because my second claim depends com-pletely on the validity of that first one. SECOND, then, I proposed that those canonical gospels so constructed are normative for all later Catholic Christianity not only in their contents, matter, or product ("love your enemies," for exam-ple) but in that very structure, form, or process (then-as-now, for example). Catholic Christians, like them, go back again and again to the Jesus of the 20s to formulate in faith and theology our communal Jesus for other places and other times. In summary, therefore, "the real Jesus" is not for me the historical Jesus alone. I agree with Luke on that. But neither is it the theological Jesus alone (whose theological Jesus, by the way?). I think Luke's correct denial that real = historical has pushed him into the opposite position that real = theological. The "real Jesus" is, for me, the per-petually renewed interaction of the historical and theological Jesus within communities of Christian faith. 2. REPLY TO LUKE'S WEEK 1, RESPONSE MESSAGE. FIRST, the point of your message where we come most closely together and where, therefore, our basic difference is most clear to me is when you say this (I presume the fuller text available to all): "To dwell only in the present experience IS to be Gnostic (or something). To dwell only in a his-torical reconstruction reduces Jesus, ultimately, to Socrates or Apollonius .... Here is why con-tinuing conversation with JESUS IN THE GOSPELS is essential ...." I rephrase that to mean that the historical Jesus is important for you but that the historical Jesus is the Jesus in the (canonical) gospels. Am I correct? The historical Jesus is not for me the "JESUS IN THE GOSPELS" but is for me, as you rightly state, the Jesus of "HISTORICAL RECON-STRUCTION." That is not done, by me, against the canonical gospels and it certainly cannot be done without them, or without Paul, for that matter. But it also involves much more as well. My books on Jesus are neither "midrash" on the gospels nor "deconstruction" of the gospels but an attempt to use all methods and materials available to reconstruct, within the normal ifs and buts of scholarship, the LIFE of the historical Jesus. You ask: "Is what Crossan means by "historical" simply what I mean by the Jesus of the Gospels?" No, Luke, it is not, as you very well know. You had already recognized the heart of our debate, namely, is the historical Jesus the Jesus of the gospels (how read: simplistically? selectively? synthetically?) or the Jesus of scholarly reconstruc-tion (read self-consciously and self-critically)? SECOND, I understand "history" to be an abbreviated expression for historical reconstruction, that is, for our best reconstruction of the actual facts given within public discourse and communal de-bate. The "actual facts" (data, interpretation, motivations, etc.) are always there as an ideal, impos-sible, or even utopian horizon but even when they sometimes totally or always partially defy our reconstructions, we have no choice but to create ourselves in and by such searches and decisions. 3. REPLY TO LUKE'S WEEK 2, PRIMARY MESSAGE. I am taking three major points from your Primary Message, Luke, but will give the last two more space than the first one. FIRST, when you distinguish "reality" (or the "real") from "history" (or the "historical") and then say that the former is a far wider category than the latter, one can hardly disagree. But then you explain that distinction by saying this: "Much of what is most interesting about human existence, in fact, escapes the cognitive net of the historical, without in the least ceasing to be real; leave aside religion: think only of music, art, dance, and all the shades of being in love." Once again, of course. But that does not free us from trying to see what and how much we can understand before our explanatory nets necessarily fail us. Do you think, for example, that history (precise and exact American history) might have something to do with the number of black-white marriages in this country? Even "being in love" is historically conditioned. I will always concede that reality is grander far than history but I will never use that statement to free myself from the responsibility of making decisions, judgments, and commitments. SECOND, you state that, "If the resurrection is understood as the continuing powerful personal presence in the world among believers, history can neither confirm nor deny the reality of that claim. It can only confess its inability to verify it." I agree completely but, once again, how does that relate to our debate? Short of proving insincerity or duplicity, history can only record that a Jones or a Koresh, for example, believed they experienced the powerful presence of Jesus in their lives. But their experienced Jesus (presuming its absolute validity as experience) needs to be played out in interaction with the historical Jesus in public discourse. To invoke the risen Jesus means, for me, both to confess the resurrection and to describe a Jesus. I want to know BOTH elements and how they relate to one another. THIRD, and this is my longer point. I begin with your Mother Theresa example. You give two possible historical reconstructions of her life: (1) "Mother Theresa has lived a life of service to the poor in India during my lifetime in a way that has made her a symbol of selfless devotion"; or (2) "While posing as a lowly nun, Mother Theresa worked to overthrow the Indian government by establishing cells of local resistance." You opt for the former one, and I think you are right. But, leaving aside the presumption of deceit in your "posing as" phrase, I could also envisage this op-tion: (3) "Mother Theresa lived a life of service to the poor in India in a way that has made her a symbol of selfless devotion and worked to overthrow the Indian government by establishing cells of local resistance." Need I remind you that, if Mother Theresa is a Roman Catholic saint in India, Gandhi was a Hindu Jain saint in India who in obedience to God gave his life in service to others AND quite deliberately overthrew the British Raj in the process." My question to you, Luke, is this. How do you know which is the proper understanding of Mother Theresa apart from historical reconstruction in public discourse? (I, of course, grant her most fully the presumption of your first interpretation pending very, very serious evidence of your second one - omitting that "posing as" phrase. With that phrase in there, I would need almost a personal confession, to accept that second reading).With that example held in mind, I turn to the LIFE (that word was very, very deliberate in my book's subtitle) of Jesus. You make the following three statements and I take their repetition as determining their fundamen-tal importance for you: (1) "Jesus' character in the canonical Gospels is as a man who in obedience to God gives his life in service to other humans." (2) "Paul .... also shares the understanding of Jesus as a Jew who in obedience to God gave his life in service to others." (3) "I argue that the evidence of Paul, Hebrews, and the four canonical Gospels point to the earliest formative memory of Jesus being that of his character as a human person giving his life in service to others." Let me, for purpose of debate, accept that as an historical reconstruction (is that how you take it?). I ask you two questions. On the one hand, how did you get that summary as distinct from some other one? What is, even in briefest synthesis, your method and discipline for making that asser-tion? On the other, my problem is that your repetition is acceptable to me on the THAT but says nothing about the HOW. I must complete the description by adding: " ... life in service to others BY DOING (WHAT?)..." For myself, summarizing my own historical reconstruction, I would complete your sentence like this: " ... life of service to others BY living out the radical justice of Israel's God and inviting others to do likewise in a situation of increasing imperial oppression, colonial collaboration, and peasant dispossession." In summary: Christians believe in the risen Jesus. Of course. And I agree, Luke, with your under-standing of resurrection as Jesus' "continuing powerful presence in the world among believers." But who is the JESUS in that RISEN JESUS? For you it is the one who in obedience to God gave his life for others. I agree but ask: (1) how did you determine that historical reconstruction rather than some other one? (2) how can something that general explain a specific human life and, espe-cially, its end by imperial execution for lower-class insurrection? Incarnation, like politics, is al-ways local (sorry, Marcus, another terminal aphorism!)