The Quest for the Real Jesus

(Brill 2013) —Chris Keith

I've just finished writing a review of The Quest for the Real Jesus (ed. Jan van der Watt) for JTS. I'll provide the link in due course but wanted to share some thoughts now. Overall the book was a very insightful and enjoyable read on the relationship between historical Jesus research and New Testament theology. I especially liked the format. The first essay is Michael Wolter's main lecture from the 2011 Radbound Prestige Lectures at Radbound University Nijmegen, where the volume's editor, Jan van der Watt, serves as Professor of New Testament. The rest of the essays are from NT scholars, NT theologians, and systematic theologians. They all respond in one way or another to Wolter's initial essay, so the reader feels like s/he's listening in on their conversation. The contributors are Cilliers Breytenbach, R. Alan Culpepper, Dr Denis O'Callaghan, James D. G. Dunn, Craig A. Evans, Christopher M. Hays, Martin Laube, Michael Licona, Robert Morgan, and Notger Slenczka.

I'll copy here a short section from the review, which describes Wolter's proposal:

The book’s emphasis on the theological contours of historical Jesus research begins in Wolter’s opening essay.  Wolter situates his discussion as a mediating position between the opinion of Reimarus, who believed that the historical Jesus behind the Gospels was historically accessible and theologically significant in contrast to the Christ of faith, and K?hler, who believed the historical Jesus behind the Gospels was historically inaccessible and theologically insignificant, since theological significance resided solely in the Christ of faith.  Wolter proposes instead a third path.  After providing a catalogue for the different approaches to Jesus in critical enquiry (“historical Jesus,” “Jesus Christ,” “earthly Christ,” “Jesus Christ remembered,” “Jesus from Nazareth,” “Jesus’ self-interpretation,” and “the real Jesus”), Wolter argues that “the real Jesus,” which he defines as “an ontic reality beyond the images that people have been making of him since the time he lived” (12), “definitely exists” but that “we cannot really say anything about him” because any perception is “contaminated with particular interpretations” (13).  Wolter proceeds, however, to argue that the theologian, as opposed to the non-theological historian, can go further in his or her knowledge since “the real Jesus” is Jesus as he is known and vindicated by God.  Wolter sees this vindication in the resurrection of Jesus and visionary experiences in the early Church, whereby God affirmed “Jesus’ self-interpretation.”  Wolter concludes, therefore, that for the theological historian, historical Jesus questions must ultimately “be answered by the self-interpretation of Jesus” (17). 

As far as I can tell, none of the respondents bought 100% into Wolter's proposal. All of them praised aspects of it and some were very critical. One of the most interesting things was to see which scholars chose to address the specific question of whether there is a categorical difference in doing historical Jesus research from a theological perspective, and which scholars chose not to address it. For me, the two highlights of the volume overall were Christopher M. Hays's and Robert Morgan's essays. Hays argues for a Gadamerian Wirkungsgeschichte approach to historical Jesus studies, where the differences between theological and non-theological approaches to historical Jesus research essentially amount to how, and to what extent, a researcher engages with Jesus' history of effects. I'm still thinking on whether Wolter's conversation is one that, at the end of the day, we can really have. But Hays convinced me that if it is to be had, it must look something like he proposes. I do wish Hays had given some more attention to the significance of a Gadamerian approach for non-theological Jesus research, though. Morgan's essay outlines how confessional Jesus researchers can incorporate the results of historical criticism into faith-images of Jesus. It's a very interesting article, though its explicit definition of historical Jesus research as "subordinate" to Christian theology, and arguments for incorporating historical Jesus research "piecemeal" into an image of Jesus as a means to "safeguard" that image, were more than a little concerning to me.  In my mind, the problem is not a faith or non-faith perspective but rather whether that position is determinative for the scholar doing historical work. For the sake of honesty in the discussion, or at least its appearance, one must preserve a place for the believing Jesus scholar who is convinced that he or she must follow the evidence wherever it leads. What is abundantly clear in the volume, however, is that the question of the relevance of historical Jesus research for New Testament theology and Christian faith is nowhere near a consensus.