Bultmann unleashed a set of criteria that were used to determine if what is attributed to Jesus in the Gospels really came from him. Now once again let's remind ourselves of something: the historical Jesus quest is about discerning what the "real" Jesus was like in comparison to what the Gospels say about him. It is nearly always a deconstructive process (convering "red" letters into grey or black letters -- see below) and then a reconstructive process (picturing a Jesus on the basis of what one finds to be historically-reliable). Everything depends on the "criteria."
These criteria became sensationalized in the work of the Jesus Seminar led by Robert Funk, which led to the famous The Five Gospels: What Did Jesus Really Say? where we were treated to the red/pink/grey/black letter edition of the Gospels -- red being "said by Jesus" and black being "not possibly said by Jesus."
It operates on this assumption from Norman Perrin: "The early Church absolutely and completely identified the risen Lord of her experience with the earthly Jesus of Nazareth and created for her purposes, which she conceived to be his, the literary form of the gospel, in which words and deeds ascribed in her consciousness to both the earthly Jesus and the risen Lord were set down in terms of the former" (Rediscovering, 1).
Here is a brief statement of the major criteria, and these are then applied to the Gospels to see what floats to the top as "authentic."
1. If a saying or event shows clear tension both with Judaism at the time of Jesus and with the early churches, then it neither came from Judaism nor from the early church, so therefore it came from Jesus. Jesus calling God "Abba" is typically used as an example since it is rare in Judaism and not used in Aramaic very often in the early churches. (Don't pick on examples.)
2. If a saying or event is found in more than one of the Gospel sources then it is from Jesus. This like the "more than one witness" element in law. If it is found in Mark and in Q and in "M" (stuff only in Matthew) and "L" (stuff only in Luke) and in John and in Gospel of Thomas etc it is more likely to have been said or done by Jesus. The less sources, the less provable. (Jesus practiced table fellowship with sinners.)
3. If a saying or event coheres with what we know from the above then it is probable that it comes from Jesus. Jesus preached a kingdom theology of inclusion -- or something like this.
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Well Scott, think of the sizable Latino communities in American cities these days where many recent immigrants see no need to learn English at all.
My wife maintains that her command of English actually deteroriated in her first years in the U.S. because she did virtually everything within the Korean community.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the implication of these criteria then seems to be that we can't really say whether Jesus' definitely did not do or say something recorded in the gospels. All we could really say based on these criteria is "Here are the things we're relatively certain Jesus did do or say. The rest we don't really know for sure one way or the other."
In which case it would seem rather hubristic for anyone to claim that the Jesus Seminar has found the "true" Jesus or even an alternative Jesus. To claim such seems to be more about marketing than about responsible scholarship. All they can say is "Here are the parts that are more or less historically verifiable."
Mike,
Yes, "more or less historically verifiable" is the methodological conclusion of how historians operate. If we are doing "history," of course, this is the sort of method one has to use because by saying "I'm going to do history" one locks oneself into a historical method.
Yes, I quite understand that Scot. What I don't understand is this dichotomy between the Christ of history vs. the Christ of faith. It seems to me that if these Jesus historians recognize the limits of their own discipline then they can't really claim that their pictures of Jesus excludes the Christ of faith. They'd just have to say that history can't definitively confirm the Christ of faith.
Why then does it seem like I hear some of these scholars setting up these kind of dichotomies? Or is that just due to the sensationalistic ways their findings get reported by Time and Newsweek and the History Channel? Not having read the Jesus Seminar scholars first hand, I don't know whether they are perhaps more balanced in their claims about what exactly their findings can tell us about Jesus.
Mike,
I guess it begins with Strauss who said the miracles didn't happen. Once you have a miracle-less Jesus, our understanding of Jesus really was changes.
Then one thing after another got eliminated and you end up with a different Jesus.
Overall, after having worked in this stuff for years and years, scholars are pretty confident about what they think Jesus didn't do and didn't say. Then there is the process of reconstruction.
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