When preaching I have occasionally referred to the fact that so far as the historical human person of Christ is concerned all that is known could be summarised on a single piece of A4 paper. But I have never said how we might go about ascertaining those facts and indeed I have never said what they are. So for my reflection this week I have chosen to write on the subject of the Historical Jesus
Perhaps the first major work that was done on this subject was carried out by Dr. Albert Schweizer, the famous doctor, church organist and Bach scholar who spent most of his working life as a missionary in Africa. This work culminated in a book written in 1906 entitled “The Quest of the Historical Jesus” and was particularly concerned with the Question of whether or not Jesus actually existed as a human person or was purely only a spiritual Messiah – Jesus or Christ? – as the question was often put. Dr.Schweitzer’s conclusion was of course that we have not Jesus or Christ but Jesus and Christ. Various other books on the subject have been written since then but one author whom I have found very helpful was Gerd Ludemann who has particularly studied the historical Jesus in relation to the crucifixion.
I glibly speak of the historical Jesus – what do I mean by this? I mean the facts that can be established that would satisfy an historian who would be approaching the subject in an unbiased or disinterested way and who would not allow himself to be swayed by his own religion or faith. In other words, we would be looking for the sort of evidence that would be acceptable in a court of law.
So, where are we going to get this evidence from? Here we have an immediate difficulty because there is virtually no direct evidence relating to Jesus – we have to rely mainly on hearsay evidence contained in texts that are many hundreds of years old. We have in the Bible first of all the letters of Paul which generally come from the years 50-60, then the Gospels of Mark c70, of Luke c80, of Matthew c85, the Acts of the Apostles c90 and finally the Gospel of John written about 100 AD. The information in these texts was probably circulating orally for many years and some fragments were probably even written down earlier than the dates I have given. This being the case one cannot simply say that because a document is known to be older it is automatically the more accurate. I should perhaps mention here the document Q (Quelle – source) which has not been found but almost certainly forms a foundation for much of the content of the Gospels of Luke and Matthew.
Basically, the Gospels contain a collection of sayings or fragments of sayings of Jesus that the evangelists have worked into a narrative to relate the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. In modern-day parlance they would probably be referred to as drama-documentaries.
In addition to the New Testament, we have other written documents of the period – some which have come to be contained in the apocrypha. Others which have never been accepted like the Gospel of Thomas and other books like the writings of Philo who was a Jewish historian writing at the time of Jesus can also be added to the mix of evidence.
Without going into all the detailed analysis which in fact Ludemann sets out in two books I will now just summarise the historical situation as he sees it.
First of all the crucifixion – Jesus was crucified in AD30 and the fact of his death is indisputable. It is almost certain that the Roman authorities allowed an exception to their general rule and permitted Jesus’s body to be taken down from the cross and buried we know not where. As neither the next of kin nor the disciples bothered about venerating Jesus’ grave it is extremely unlikely that even they knew where it was. And certainly, if the early Christians knew where his grave was, they, as with all their known saints, would have venerated it and the traditions about it would have been preserved to this day.
So what can we now say about the Easter event? The narratives of the visit to the tomb have all been formed around Mary of Magdala and so the historical fact hinges around the credibility of her visit to the tomb. But there is no real evidence to support this visit and it is suggested that the visit is a legend that was inserted into the narrative at a later stage to defend the Christian belief in the resurrection against the Christian opponents.
However, it can be taken as historically correct that Peter and the disciples had experiences after the death of Jesus in which he appeared amongst them as the risen Christ.
None of the stories of the resurrection has come directly from an eye-witness – they have all come via a community or via a theologically trained person. It is probable therefore that the accounts of the resurrection of Jesus are to be understood as attempts to explain the inexplicable – the inexplicable being the appearances, the only aspects of the Easter event that we can say are truly and indisputably historical. The appearances cannot be denied and if the risen Jesus did in fact reveal himself in those appearances, then that in itself would be sufficient to reinforce our Christian faith, the manner of his resurrection being of much less importance.
So, what now can we say about the appearances – first, they were visions, those of Peter and Paul being original without any external stimulus or catalyst. Peter’s vision enabled him to overcome his severe guilt regarding his threefold denial of Jesus, with the Risen Jesus enabling him once again to proclaim God’s word of forgiveness.
The appearance to Paul, at that time an enemy of Christ, was entirely independent of the vision of Peter, but again is concerned with overcoming a denial of Jesus. A second similarity with the Peter vision is that the feeling of guilt has been replaced by faith in the certainty of grace with the third similarity being that that grace is available to all who believe.
This then leaves us with one outstanding but vitally important question. That question is:- was God the author of these visions or were they psychological phenomena or processes which took place in Peter and Paul without any divine intervention? Upon the answer to this question hinges the answer to the fundamental question of whether or not the resurrection is a provable historical event
Well Ludemann who has completed much of the work that I have been describing is very firmly of the opinion that these visions were psychological processes which ran their course with a degree of regularity and completely without divine intervention. I might put the alternative viewpoint that these visions were an example of God’s self communication. Or, in other words the visions were a vivid demonstration of the presence of God as the transcendental ground and horizon of everything which exists and knows and takes place precisely in and through that which is finite and exists in the world. However this is a line of enquiry that takes us into the domain of existential philosophy and theology which is too complex to deal with in a short reflection.
Returning to Ludemann – in his view the visions were not divine intervention. From this it follows that it is not necessary to believe in a resurrection of Jesus in order to explain the phenomena of the visions of the risen Christ as experienced by Peter and Paul. Or, in other words the resurrection of Jesus is not a provable historical fact. This is not to say that the event of the resurrection was not taken literally by the earliest Christians – but that interpretation should be regarded within the framework of possibilities then. Nowadays we have to interpret the Gospels within the framework of today’s possibilities – and, to reiterate, the bodily revival of Jesus is not within the framework of today’s possibilities.
To digress for a moment, this was the view of the Church of England House of Bishops in 1986. Their statement recognised that irreversible physiological changes would have occurred swiftly after death leaving this option an impossibility. So, no resuscitation. However, a re-creation in one form or another was a possibility. And this is of course what many believe. After all, if God is so omnipotent that he created the cosmos, then he could have recreated Jesus.
Secondly, the resurrection is more than the mere survival of the spirit of Jesus, for this would deny the true role of Christ explained in the words of St.Paul, expressing the central affirmation of Christianity, “in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself.” Jesus was or rather is the representative man, the Son of Man, the Messiah whose future was interlocked with that of his people who by “faith, baptism and the Holy Spirit are in him in the sight of God, united with him so fully and finally that it can be said that he died for their sakes and that they died and rose in him.
So, where does this leave us. If we don’t believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus can we still call ourselves Christians. I say, of course we can because as Paul says in 1 Cor 15, Christ was raised a spiritual body.
To summarise where we have got to so far:
1) Jesus was crucified in AD30 and the fact of his death is indisputable.
2) It is extremely unlikely that the early Christians knew the location of his grave and is possible that the visit of Mary of Magdala is a legend that was inserted at a later stage to defend the Christian belief in the resurrection against the Christian opponents.
3) It can be taken as historically correct that Peter and the disciples had experiences after Jesus’ death in which he appeared amongst them as the risen Christ.
4) The visions of Peter and Paul were independent of one another; they were both concerned with overcoming a denial of Jesus, the feeling of guilt is removed and replaced by faith in the certainty of grace and finally they both had the similarity that that grace is available to all who believe in Christ.
These conclusions I would emphasise once again are the facts that stand up to close investigation and could be used in court. But it should equally be remembered that it does not mean that many of the other experiences described in the New Testament and not true – they are simply unproven and in some cases shown to be unlikely.
However, to return to our known facts that I have just reiterated, they leave us with one outstanding but vitally important question:- was God the author of these visions or were they psychological phenomena or processes which took place in Peter and Paul without any divine intervention?
Well Ludemann who has completed much of the work I have been describing is very firmly of the opinion that these visions were psychological processes which ran their course with a degree of regularity and completely without divine intervention. I reiterate the alternative point of view that these visions were an example of God’s self-communication. Or in other words the visions were a vivid demonstration of the presence of God as the transcendental ground and horizon of everything which exists and knows and takes place precisely in and through that which is finite and exists in the world. However, as mentioned above, this line of argument takes us into the realm of existential philosophy and theology which is certainly too complex to deal with in a short reflection.
So, let us return to Ludemann – the visions were not divine intervention. From this it follows that it is not necessary to believe in a resurrection of Jesus in order to explain the phenomena of the visions of the risen Christ experienced by Peter and Paul. Or, in other words the resurrection of Jesus is not a provable historical event. This is not to say that the event of the resurrection was not taken literally by the earliest Christians – but that interpretation should be regarded within the framework of possibilities then. Nowadays we must interpret the Gospels within the framework of today’s possibilities – and to reiterate, the bodily revival of Jesus is not within the framework of today’s possibilities. But maybe some form of re-creation is possible.
So where does this lead us. If we don’t believe in the bodily revival of Jesus can we still call ourselves Christians. I certainly believe in the spiritual resurrection and would suggest that the essence of faith in the resurrection is therefore the belief that Jesus was made one with God, being translated immediately without reservation to glory. It is that through the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ is both one with the Father in glory and one with his people on earth. In other words the risen Christ is the one who unites us with God.
This, of course, leaves the question “Where do we meet this risen Christ?” The theologian and Priest H.A.Williams tackled this problem head on and suggested that like the two disciples on the road to Emmaus we travel part of the way with the risen Christ but, unlike them, we do not perceive who he is. But in reality his spiritual presence makes us what we are, establishing our personal identity, enabling us to participate in this world as agents of God endeavouring to create goodness wherever possible. Endeavouring is, I believe, the important word here because in reality in life there is inevitably suffering. However, we begin to recognise the power of the resurrection when all “that separates and injures and destroys is being overcome by all that unites and heals and creates.”
That we should all, with the help of the Holy Spirit, be working towards this end is, I would argue, the essential message of Easter.
Dr David Greenwood d.greenwood@uwtsd.ac.uk April 2022
Bibliography:
Ludemann, Gerd. The Resurrection of Jesus. London SCM Press 1994
Schweitzer, Albert. The Quest of the Historical Jesus. London Adam and Charles
Black 1954. (First German edition 1906)
Williams, Harry The True Resurrection. London. Michael Beazle. 1972
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