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what is meant by scholars when they say the historical Jesus?

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what are the criteria that we use when we talk decide what is historical and what is not?

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what do we mean when we talk about the real Nero or the real Caligula, or Reagan or Clinton

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what we usually mean by the real person is a body of knowledge that approaches an extremely accurate record of every day of their life

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obviously, ancient history is a different caliber for determining what is real in this sense

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few sources

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the idea of objectivity certainly wasn't there for ancient biographers

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even the very significant figures are not well known in the sense of accuracy

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we sense that Caligula was an evil kind of person since people who witness his murders communicated this, but he never communicated anything directly

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but we don't know for certain to what degree Caligula was mad, sad, or bad

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once you get past what Suetonius and Tacitus tell us in the way of gossip, what do we really know?

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and this was one of the emperors

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for Jesus

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once you get down to the totally obscure Jew from Palestine who was born probably somewhere around 8-4 BC and lived to roughly around 30 AD, you get the sense that we're not going to have a vast amount of information here

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but this is a problem we face with any ancient, historical figure

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what we know with certitude about Alexander the Great could probably be fit onto a single page of print

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and so we have problems here with the historical Jesus

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this historical Jesus is the person who can be recovered, reconstituted, and reconstructed by applying modern tools of historical research to ancient sources

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even the Gospels mention that what they report of Jesus is a selection of what they knew, and that it was written not for a historical purpose of explaining who the name behind the Jesus name was, but that you may believe in Jesus as a religious figure, which is something entirely different

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as with anything written in Ancient times, these texts were written from a very specific point of view

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in the case of Jesus, most written accounts must be seen through the faith carried on by the early church

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which leads tot he second question: if the four Gospels are both our major sources and our major road blocks of constructing a historical Jesus, how do you approach them, how do you sift them, so that on the one hand you're not being terribly naive, whereas on the other hand you're not being unduly skeptical

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Mark

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was written around 70 AD

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drew upon earlier collections

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Matthew and Luke

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build on Mark

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but have a separate stream of sayings of Jesus which we label Q

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have their own special traditions

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John

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is very useful contrary to what many people claim

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it represents a different tradition than the Synoptic Gospels (Mark, Matthew and Luke)

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was the last one to be written

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there is much to much of a tendency to dismiss John

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some say John's account of the Last Supper was correct and the Synoptics were not

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what criteria do we use to discover the historical Jesus

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stage one

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the actual life of Jesus himself

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stage two

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the early oral tradition and the teaching of the Church after Jesus' death

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applying Jesus' teaching to unwashed pagans being introduced to it

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stage three

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the evangelists: Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John

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how do we move back from stage three, to stage two, and then to stage one

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redaction criticism

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regards the author of the text as editor of his or her source materials

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considers the tendencies of the final writer

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criterion

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Greek [κριτήριον] for a test, a means of judging

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some reject criteria

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what criteria are reasons, rules, standards on which to make a judgement

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so what use are your conclusions without these reasons, rules, and standards

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so criteria is very important, i.e. to know what criteria you use, when do they apply, in what ways do they apply, etc.

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multiple attestation of independent sources

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thinking of it as a court room, you need more than one person on the witness stand who did not collude with the witness beforehand

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the prohibition of divorce is in

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Mark's gospel

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Q tradition

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Paul is very strong on urging this

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was very confident of his apostolic authority

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it was typical of him call who speaks in the "I" form

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e.g. I Corinthians, chapter 7

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but with the prohibition of divorce, Paul suggests that Jesus said it

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when he needs to talk about a mixed marriage between a Christian and a pagan, then he returns to his own authority

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discontinuity criteria

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in mainstream Judaism had rules and regulations govern it

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that one would prohibit it completely is not likely

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the early church struggled with the prohibition of divorce that they were apparently handed down by Jesus

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criteria of embarrassment

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John the Baptist baptizing Jesus

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with stark and laconic Mark

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everything is done quickly and you are left wondering what he meant by it

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he says that everyone that comes out to John the Baptist to confess their sins

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then Jesus came to be baptized, interestingly without the further participle referring to confessing of sins

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in the later Gospels

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feel Mark has not done enough

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you have an argument before Jesus' baptism where John says that he should rather be baptized by Jesus

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Jesus speaking his first words, says, let it be so for now

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Matthew

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mathematical Matthew, teaching by way of patterns

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Luke goes more radical

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has John the Baptist in the infancy narrative

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as well as Elizabeth, Mary, Zachary

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Herod then puts John in prison

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after that, Jesus gets baptized, we are not told who baptized Jesus, and we are told that John is in prison

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in the sermons of Peter and Paul where you get summaries of the Gospel stories, but never is ever said about the Baptism of Jesus by John in those summaries

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John

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the radical maverick Gospel

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a different tradition and a world view, almost into Platonism

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his radical solution is that it never happened

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never says John the Baptist

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John is baptizing, but his major function is to witness to Jesus

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Jesus is never baptized in the fourth gospel

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in fact we find out that Jesus is baptizing other people in an imitation of John

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criterion of Jesus' passionate death

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how do we explain that this teacher and healer from Galilee winds up getting crucified by the Roman Prefect in Jerusalem

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he must have said things and did things that threatened people and threatened very powerful people

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so a bland Jesus, or Jesus as cynic philosopher, or a Jesus who is interested in mysticism is not very believable