My understanding of Jesus has grown and developed over the years. The question asked by Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906 – 1945), pastor and theologian, in 1939 “Who is Jesus Christ, for us, today?” has been with me since I was a college student. I have always been a questioner, but I remain a committed Christian. For me Jesus is still the great revelation of the Way, the Truth, and the Life. (John 14:6)
As a high school religion teacher in Battle Creek, Michigan in the 1970s, I wanted to help my students reflect on who Jesus was for them. We listened to and discussed the musicals Godspell, with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz (born 1948); and Jesus Christ Superstar with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber (born 1948) and lyrics by Tim Rice (born 1944). I still have warm memories of those days. Great students who taught me a lot about being a teacher.
Most recently, this past December, I gave a three week course about Jesus and the Gospels to a continuing ed group of retired men and women in Leuven, Belgium.
The well thought-out questions of my Leuven group as well as a number of questions from Another Voice readers, prompt me to return once again, with some new observations, to a series of Lenten reflections about the meaning of Jesus yesterday and for us today. I encourage you to think and reflect along with me, reading the four Gospels.
Virtually all scholars of antiquity accept that Jesus – known as “Yeshua” — was an historical figure and attempts to deny his historicity have be consistently rejected by the scholarly consensus. Jesus was a Galilean Hebrew who was born between 7 and 2 BCE and died around 30 CE.
A brief comment about dates: Our current dating system was devised in 525 by Dionysius Exiguus (c. 470 – c. 544), a monk in the Eastern Roman Empire, who thought Jesus was born in the year 1. Dates after that were labeled AD for the Latin words Anno Domini meaning “the Year of the Lord. Today, there is a movement to use terminology that is more neutral and inclusive of non-Christian people. In place of AD, historians speak of CE, for the Common Era. Preceding years are referred to as BCE, Before the Common Era.
The historic Jesus lived only in Galilee and Judea. Galilee, a significant region in the biblical narrative, is located in the northern part of ancient Israel. It is notably separated from Judea by the region of Samaria, whose residents were the Samaritans, who did not accept all elements of Hebrew belief. Nazareth, where Jesus grew up, was in Galilee; and Galilee was the venue for most of Jesus’ public ministry.
Judea was the ancient name of the mountainous terrain surrounding Jerusalem. Pontius Pilate, who presided at the final trial of Jesus and gave the order for his crucifixion, was the Roman governor of Judea from 26 to 36 CE
Like most people from Galilee back then, Jesus most likely had brown eyes, dark brown to black hair and olive-brown skin. Jesus spoke Aramaic and may have also spoken Hebrew and Greek. The languages spoken in Galilee and Judea during the 1st century included the Semitic Aramaic and Hebrew languages as well as Greek, with Aramaic being the predominant language.
Most contemporary biblical scholars agree that Jesus began his public ministry when he was about thirty years old, as indicated in Luke 3:23. The New Testament does not specifically give the ages of any of the men and women who were Jesus’ disciples. Biblical historians suggest, however, that some of them may have joined Jesus as early as age 15 and would have still been teenagers at the time of his death and resurrection. Education for young Hebrews, in Jesus’ time, concluded at the age of 15.
What did Jesus do before his public ministry? We don’t know. We can can only speculate. Perhaps Jesus was like his father a first century worker in construction work outside Nazareth. Most scholars suggest that for a while Jesus belonged to the religious movement of John the Baptizer, a Hebrew preacher active in the area of the Jordan River in the early first century. John’s baptism was a purification ceremony meant to ready peoples’ hearts to receive the messiah. Jesus’ baptism opened his mind and heart to his own identity and messianic ministry.
Several New Testament accounts report that some of Jesus’s disciples had also been early followers of John the Baptizer. Some scholars think that John belonged to the Essenes, a semi-ascetic Hebrew sect who expected a messiah and practiced ritual baptism.
Concerning Christian scriptures, it was not until at least twenty years after the death and resurrection of Jesus that the first Christian scriptures were composed. Written in the decade of the 50s, they are the letters of the early Christian apostle Paul, also named Saul of Tarsus (c. 5 – c. 64/65).
Today we know as well that not all letters attributed to Paul were authored by him. There is general scholarly agreement that Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon are genuinely Pauline. Other letters bearing Paul’s name are disputed among scholars, namely Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, and Titus. Most contemporary biblical scholars agree that Hebrews was certainly not written by Paul. In fact, the emphasis on Melchizedek and priesthood in Hebrews seems out of sync with Pauline theology.
Biblical perspectives on the historical Jesus are based on the Pauline epistles and the gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John. Those four gospels, however, do not represent all the early gospels available. This becomes clear in studying other gospels either discerned as sources inside the official four or else discovered as documents outside them. An example of a source hidden within the four canonical gospels is the reconstructed document known as Q, from the German word Quelle, meaning “source,” which is now imbedded within both Luke and Matthew.
An example of an other ancient Jesus document discovered outside the four canonical gospels is the Gospel of Thomas, which was found at Nag Hammadi, in Upper Egypt, in the winter of 1945 and is, in the view of many scholars, completely independent of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John. It is also most strikingly different from them, especially in its format. It identifies itself as a gospel, but it is in fact a collection of the sayings of Jesus given without any descriptions of deeds or miracles, crucifixion or resurrection stories.
The official “canonical” list of the four Gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John was affirmed by the Council of Rome in 382 and the Synod of Hippo in 393.
All four Gospels evolved from oral traditions, passed on from person to person and from place to place. More than one single person (i.e. Mark, Matthew, Luke, John) composed the final versions of the four Gospels as we have them today. Each time the narrators adapted their accounts to the needs, understanding, and cultural / religious backgrounds of their listeners. The Gospels were not written therefore to give us strict “history.” The Gospels contain bits of history, parables, metaphor, symbol, re-interpreted passages from the Greek (Septuagint) Hebrew Scriptures, and imagined scenarios for key events in the life of Jesus.
Next week some thoughts about the importance of the historical critical method for biblical interpretation; and the week after that, the focus will be on Jesus in the Gospel of Mark.
- Jack
Dr. John Alonzo Dick – Historical Theologian
Another Voice 