An atheist friend inadvertently challenged me. He gave his reasons why he does not believe that the Jesus of the Christian scriptures was / is who the authors claim He was / is; nor, he admits, does he think that the believers in the second, third, and fourth centuries knew any better about Jesus than did the "misguided" people in the first century. Simply, there was an historical figure mentioned by Josephus who somewhat matches the profile of the long-expected Jewish Messiah, and such a person may have been the Jesus who Christians claim as Savior, whom they also worship, but He is not the Messiah, the Christ, nor the divine Son of God we call the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth. He argues that some first-century religious Jews were confused about a future Messiah and attached the Messiah notion to Jesus mistakenly.
But how could my friend possibly know this? What is evidence for such a belief? Where is it written? Upon what authority does he reach this conclusion? Why did Jesus not correct those misguided and confused first-century Jewish people who "attached the notion" of a Messianic figure to Him? Why did Jesus allow them to follow and worship Him? Are we now to believe the unbelieving Jewish leaders who said to Pilate of Jesus at His crucifixion: "Do not write, 'The King of the Jews' [as inscription above His head], but rather, 'This Man said, I am King of the Jews'" (John 19:21 ESV)? "Pilate answered, 'What I have written I have written'" (John 19:22). Why did Jesus allow us to be led into error? Was Jesus Himself mistaken? Was He deceived into believing the misguided notions of uneducated fishermen? If so then why did He call them to follow Him? Follow Him to what purpose? Typically, the Jewish man would seek out a Rabbi under which to study, not vice versa.
THE NEED FOR A GOD
The worldview of some atheists, their presupposition, is predicated upon another belief: any notion or "felt-need" of God is farcical at best and nonsensical and psychologically-damaging at worst. My friend confesses he has never understood any necessity for belief in a Creator, as evolution explains our origins, and that we give life meaning. Some people, allegedly because they cannot sufficiently "give life meaning or purpose," have created God. Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, Christians, Vikings, ancient Celts, the Romans, the Greeks, the Mayans: all maintain similar stories of a God or gods; all are devoted to their God or gods; and all seek to proselytize and tell others that their beliefs comprise purely objective religious and worldview truths--at least justified true beliefs--in their respective faiths and holy texts and they each have their own reasons why everyone else should also believe. All religious worldviews, then, are equal and equally invalid.
EVOLUTION AS FAITH
People like my friend are comfortable with their belief in evolution, in a naturalistic worldview devoid of any possible metaphysical realities, that it answers all their questions, that they sense no "need" for a deity and, so, the "historical Jesus" is irrelevant. To my friend, my reasons for believing in the historical Jesus--that I worship, love and trust Him as Lord, King and Savior--is a bit "backwoods," meaning, an uneducated, unwarranted, and superstitious worldview. My friend is in no sense belligerent about promoting his beliefs--nor demeaning toward my own beliefs for that matter. He merely thinks that I have a need to fill, and I fill it with worship, devotion, and love for a Jesus of Christian legend. The Bible is fallacious to him, filled with mythical legends (as well as errors and contradictions), and silly beyond reason.
I wonder, though, how much faith is required to believe in the proffered theory of evolution--that matter originated or came into existence from non-matter? Or that all matter is merely eternal? Because if the entire universe was once compressed into a sphere smaller than the size of a pin, and of itself spontaneously and uncausedly burst into motion arbitrarily one day, then, not only does such a proposition betray science, but such a faith fails to explain the origin of that matter compressed into that sphere. Some-thing (some material object) cannot spring into being from no-thing (out of thin air or from no causal object). Design requires a Designer; creation a Creator; motion a Mover: that kind of materialist / naturalist faith requires far too much for me to reasonably concede. I mean, talk about a fairy tale, that matter can magically appear from nothing; that the movement of an object is self-moved; that intelligence can evolve by mere will. What nonsense!
WHY I BELIEVE
As I was thinking over his issues, and my issues, I thought about the various reasons why I believe in the historical Jesus. But, when I refer to the "historical" Jesus, I am also referring to the Resurrected Jesus. In other words, for me, He is not merely a political figure of history, a social-justice hero, or a mere man of great renown. He is no mere philosopher, no mere great intellectual thinker, no mere social reformer. Jesus is the unique Son of God, Son of a human mother but not of a human father (God is His Father and Jesus is His Son--God the Son), who lived a sinless life, being the second member of the Trinity, died for sinners, was buried in a borrowed tomb, rose from the dead three days later, ascended back to God in Heaven and will return again as LORD (YWHW) and King to judge the living and the dead.
HISTORICAL JESUS STUDIES
If I am to concede the ignorant and damnably heretical views of John Dominic Crossan or the late John Shelby Spong and Marcus Borg and their woeful ilk--rank, unChristian, unregenerate heretics each one of them--concerning Jesus then I cannot maintain belief in the Jesus I just described. Their Jesus and the Jesus I worship are not the same Jesus--and there are false views of Jesus (2 Cor. 11:4). Their false Jesus is "a peasant Jewish Cynic."1 But, while I reject their Jesus, I do admire their candor regarding historical Jesus studies: they are correct to note that the diversity among historical Jesus scholars is "an academic embarrassment"--but not for the laughable reason they think.
Crossan writes: "It is impossible to avoid the suspicion that historical Jesus research is a very safe place to do theology and call it history, to do autobiography and call it biography."2 We must not assume that one can encounter the four-fold Gospel of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, without a proper understanding of the history, the culture, and theology of those first-century Jews, and also conclude with a proper view of who Jesus was and is today. But this is exactly what Jesus Seminar scholars accomplish. They claim to study the history, culture, and theology of first-century Jewish people and still conclude with a Jesus worlds apart from that of the New Testament. Upon what evidence? Academic embarrassment indeed! To call their methodology "academic" is to betray the etymology of the very word itself and to redefine it!
Who gets to decide what comprises a proper understanding of the historical Jesus? Robert Funk? John Dominic Crossan? John Shelby Spong? Marcus Borg? Bart Ehrman? May God Himself forbid! What of Craig Evans? Or Gary Habermas? Craig Keener? E.P. Sanders? Dale C. Allison? Mike Licona? Anthony Le Donne? Darrell Bock? N.T. Wright? John P. Meier? Craig Blomberg? At least these men are believers! Moreover, who gets to decide on who gets to decide? Whoever is chosen there will be those who disagree. Whoever is chosen will be challenged. How is authority measured? Each of us chooses to grant authority to those who think like us. What guides my understanding of Christ Jesus is the authority of holy Scripture--an academic stumbling block for unregenerate skeptics, agnostics, and atheistic non-believers.
FIRST-CENTURY EVIDENCE OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS
Dr. Craig S. Keener asserts that first-century biographies, such as we find in the Christian scriptures, are tantamount to historical biographies; and that, "although biographies could serve a wide range of literary functions, ancient biographers intended their works to be historical than novelistic."3 Thus what we read in the Gospel accounts recorded in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John regarding the life and times of Jesus are not merely parabolic in nature, or what could relate to legend, but to actual historical verity. For those who think that these texts contain errors as to the Person and teachings of Jesus, and thus they cannot be trusted historically, Dr. Keener remarks: Naturally we have "a range of works sometimes classified as biography. Yet where these biographies' information is inaccurate, they do not thereby become novels. As some literary critics have pointed out, even when historical works have incorrect facts they do not become fiction, and a novel that depends on historical information [e.g., Sir Walter Scott, Philippa Gregory] does not become history."4
Commensurate with these facts, N.T. Wright (whose views on the atonement of Christ I find utterly disgusting, offensive, and overtly and damnably heretical) sets our task before us: When engaging the text of first-century Gospel accounts, we "examine the known actions of the subject (not to exclude words, but to set them in their fullest context), and to see what may be deduced from them." I think this is an excellent starting place, since words alone cannot be examined and thus interpreted apart from the historical reality of their historical contexts. He writes: "Actions, especially symbolic actions, speak louder than words. Studying actions, especially symbolic actions, is a far-better starting point for the historian than studying isolated sayings"5 (emphasis added), the latter of which is an embarrassing faux pas upon Jesus Seminar advocates, notably the damnably theological heretics like Crossan and the late Marcus Borg and John Shelby Spong.
We possess numerous eye-witness accounts of the historical Person we call Jesus.6 The accounts of His life and His messages are passed on orally through His disciples and others. Yet some, like E.P. Sanders, insist that Jesus' words and deeds are essentially "pulled out of their original context (in His own career) and thrust into another context, [that of] the disciples' preaching and teaching."7 How can he know this? If he is going to insist upon such conclusions then he must inform us as to how he knows what he is claiming to know. How can he possibly know that Jesus' words are "pulled out of their original context and thrust into another context" when all we have are the words of the authors who recorded Jesus' words? We have no original texts! The statement is outlandish! He cannot know such information regarding context because the only Text available he can use is the very Text he rejects! This is ludicrous and unacademic at best.
EXPERIENCES
I am not one to normally appeal to experience for evidential support on a magnitude such as Jesus studies. Yet I cannot deny that a great part of my belief in Jesus is due to an existenstial-experiential hermeneutic. In other words, my personal encounter with Him has deeply affected my life to such a degree that I cannot deny or explain away the changes belief in Him has effected within me--my psyche, my spirit, my personality and, really, my entire life. I usually do not appeal to experience because I know the Buddhist, the Muslim, or any other advocate of any other religious or even secular belief can make the same appeal. I have heard and I have read heart-wrenching personal testimonies of a Mormon, a Buddhist, a Jain, a Muslim and a Modalist regarding varying religiously-oriented experiences each one claims as some validity to their beliefs that I reject. In their opinions, my own experience with Jesus is no more and no less valid than their own, and this is utterly disheartening because Jesus is decisively exclusionary (John 14:1-6). He is the one and only way to God the Father--the one and only way to Heaven--the one and only way of salvation from sin and Hell and God's wrath. He Himself said so!
All I can claim about my own life is that, before trusting in Jesus, I had no interest in God and all that pertains to God or to the life of the world to come; neither did I love God, desire to worship and to follow God, nor care to live as He would have me live (though I often fail). While no one is capable of robbing me of this life-changing experience, I also understand its limits as being a viable witness to the historical reality of Jesus, who sits at the right hand of God. My experience will seem relative and subjective to non-believers or to believers of some other deity or religion. The truth of my changed life is irrefutable--that is objective even from the perspective of others who know me. I am changed. They have all witnessed the change. The cause for this change is attributed by me (and others) solely to God in Christ Jesus by the Holy Spirit through the Gospel. Detractors will argue for a psychosomatic or emotional cause. But of course they will--as is their way.
THE BIBLE
From my own experience I have concluded that the Bible is the single most trusted and distrusted book in the entire world. Both a best-seller and a much-despised and oft-neglected collection of songs, poetry, history and letters, the Bible is revered as the Judaeo-Christian holy book for both Jews and Christians, inspired by its Divine Author, the Creator of the universe: God, through Christ, in the Holy Spirit. From form criticism, redaction criticism, to structuralism, post-structuralism and social-scientific methods, our approach to a view of its contents determines what we believe about and how we interpret the scriptures. For someone who believes the Bible is authored by uneducated farmers and misogynistic fisherman, littered with errors, filled with legends, people engaged in historical Jesus studies can only conclude that the Man to whom the Gospels refer as "Jesus" is merely a myth at best and a lying psychopath at worst. God forbid the heresy!
For someone who believes that the Bible has God the Holy Spirit for its inspiration, such is granted an unquestioned degree of accepting the words on the pages regarding the historical Jesus. Dr. Craig Blomberg writes: "Much skepticism about the Gospels' reliability stems from faulty methods used in analyzing the Gospels or from faulty presuppositions on which those methods depend."8 With absolute certainty, critics of this statement can make the same charge to Blomberg and others who trust Scripture--that Blomberg and those of us who implicitly trust the words in Scripture operate within faulty methods used in analyzing the Gospels or from faulty presuppositions on which those faulty methods depend, such as that God is the Author of Scripture. Those who refuse to believe find their own self-appointed justifications for their unbelief because that is what unbelievers do--they do not believe--they cannot believe because they refuse to believe.
CERTAINTY CHALLENGED
Daniel Taylor, in his book The Myth of Certainty, writes: "How to find truth, that is the question, and how to know that one has found it. Nothing has so occupied reflective men and women for as long as we have record; nothing has elicited more anguish and struggle. Nothing, also, has created such a climate for despair and irresponsibility as the modern conviction that the word [spoken or written] no longer has much meaning."9 Whatever beliefs one holds, he thinks that objective truth has been discovered. Yet we all disagree on so many topics; and even among those of us who have many agreements, we disagree on some points, no matter how minute the issue. Taylor continues: "Of the many possible avenues to truth, two of the most traveled are reason and faith. What simple names for activities so complex and diverse by themselves, let alone when brought into relationship with one another."10 I believe in the historical New Testament Jesus--as well as in my life-changing experience with Him in 1995 (and even to this day), and that the Bible is the authoritative Word of God--because I reason that such a belief is viable, justifiable, even plausible. I think I have reason to believe. I think my reasons for believing are valid for everyone.
THE FACULTY OF REASON
I also believe that reason is a gift of God to us as creatures created by the hands of God Himself (Gen. 1:26, 27; 2:7; 5:1, 2; 9:6; Deut. 4:32; Job 4:17; 10:8, 9, 10, 11, 12; 31:15; 33:4; 34:19; Ps. 8:3, 4, 5, 6; 89:47; 95:6; 100:3; 104:30; 119:73, 74; 138:8; 139:13-16; Eccl. 3:11; 12:7; Isa. 17:7; 42:5; 43:7; 44:24; 49:5; 64:8; Jer. 1:5; 27:5; Zech. 12:1; Mal. 2:10; Matt. 19:4; John 1:3; Acts 17:26, 27, 28; 1 Cor. 8:6; Gal. 1:15; Eph. 3:9; Col. 1:16; 3:10; Heb. 3:4; James 3:9; Rev. 4:11). "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD" (Isa. 1:18 KJV). Here both God and Isaiah use the faculty of their reason. The reference here to reason, Heb. yakach--to adjudge, to decide, to prove, to argue--is contextualized within the framework of Isaiah's fallen experience (he is one who sins). In other words, the omniscient God of Israel, understanding that Isaiah is operating in a post-fall creation-order, still communicates with him by use of his human reason. So his reason is still intact even though sin has entered his own human context. Whatever we believe about human nature, and sin, what we cannot deny is some retention of our God-given reason.
REASON ALONE?
But one's reason alone is not at all-sufficient. My reason can err. We all, to one degree or another, whether knowingly or unknowingly perpetuate cognitive distortions or thinking (reasoning) errors. We may call it our "judgment"--we sometimes exhibit poor judgment. Some find belief in God reasonable yet fail to respond in faith. What some include in a notion of faith is a degree of grade, or quality of validity, a "justified true belief" related to one's reason. I reason that faith in Richard Dawkins' Flying Spaghetti Monster is unjustifiable. I cannot respond to Dawkins' mock-god with faith because I have no justification to reason that such an entity exists, and he already knows this--the Monster is merely a rhetorical ploy and one that fails miserably. We did not invent God the way he purposely invented his Spaghetti Monster. Our God graciously revealed Himself to mankind; and, by grace, He restores our reason to function adequately even if not yet perfectly.
We did not invent the historical Jesus. Ancient records indicate His existence--both secular and religious. I have justifiable cause to respond in faith to the historical Jesus of the Gospel accounts, a faith which corresponds with my reason, and I am in no sense threatened by critics, skeptics, and their challenges to this issue. Skeptics may present their cases against my claims, but my faith remains justified and unharmed by their criticisms, because my reason concurs and I, therefore, can with the integrity of reason and faith adhere to the historical eye-witness accounts of Jesus in the Gospel accounts. I can also reason that many folks were still alive (cf. 1 Cor. 15:6) during the writing of the Gospels, and early letters, and they could verify if there were inconsistent records of either Jesus' words or actions. No one came forth.
THE ROLE OF DOUBT
Should I encounter doubt (and I do at times), I can always appeal to my reason (renewed to a better state via regeneration) as well as to my faith in Christ and the Word of God, even if I cannot answer every question posed against my claims. In closing, Taylor writes, T.S. Eliot sees a certain kind of doubt as inevitable in matters of faith and correctly suggests that one's attitude toward doubt is more significant
__________
1 John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (New York: HarperOne, 1992), 421.
2 Ibid., xxviii.
3 Craig S. Keener, The Historical Jesus of the Gospels (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2009), 79.
4 Ibid., 81. Scripture, we argue, is not a collection of myths (2 Peter 1:16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21).
5 N.T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God: Christian Origins and the Question of God, Volume 2 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996), 141.
6 "The primary sources for Jesus were written nearer his own lifetime, and people who had known him were still alive. That is one of the reasons for saying that in some ways we know more about Jesus than about Alexander [the Great]." See E.P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus (New York: Penguin Books, 1995), 3-4.
7 Ibid., 59.
8 Craig L. Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of the Gospels (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1987), xvii.
9 Daniel Taylor, The Myth of Certainty: The Reflective Christian and the Risk of Commitment (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1992), 66.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid., 80.
But how could my friend possibly know this? What is evidence for such a belief? Where is it written? Upon what authority does he reach this conclusion? Why did Jesus not correct those misguided and confused first-century Jewish people who "attached the notion" of a Messianic figure to Him? Why did Jesus allow them to follow and worship Him? Are we now to believe the unbelieving Jewish leaders who said to Pilate of Jesus at His crucifixion: "Do not write, 'The King of the Jews' [as inscription above His head], but rather, 'This Man said, I am King of the Jews'" (John 19:21 ESV)? "Pilate answered, 'What I have written I have written'" (John 19:22). Why did Jesus allow us to be led into error? Was Jesus Himself mistaken? Was He deceived into believing the misguided notions of uneducated fishermen? If so then why did He call them to follow Him? Follow Him to what purpose? Typically, the Jewish man would seek out a Rabbi under which to study, not vice versa.
THE NEED FOR A GOD
The worldview of some atheists, their presupposition, is predicated upon another belief: any notion or "felt-need" of God is farcical at best and nonsensical and psychologically-damaging at worst. My friend confesses he has never understood any necessity for belief in a Creator, as evolution explains our origins, and that we give life meaning. Some people, allegedly because they cannot sufficiently "give life meaning or purpose," have created God. Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, Christians, Vikings, ancient Celts, the Romans, the Greeks, the Mayans: all maintain similar stories of a God or gods; all are devoted to their God or gods; and all seek to proselytize and tell others that their beliefs comprise purely objective religious and worldview truths--at least justified true beliefs--in their respective faiths and holy texts and they each have their own reasons why everyone else should also believe. All religious worldviews, then, are equal and equally invalid.
EVOLUTION AS FAITH
People like my friend are comfortable with their belief in evolution, in a naturalistic worldview devoid of any possible metaphysical realities, that it answers all their questions, that they sense no "need" for a deity and, so, the "historical Jesus" is irrelevant. To my friend, my reasons for believing in the historical Jesus--that I worship, love and trust Him as Lord, King and Savior--is a bit "backwoods," meaning, an uneducated, unwarranted, and superstitious worldview. My friend is in no sense belligerent about promoting his beliefs--nor demeaning toward my own beliefs for that matter. He merely thinks that I have a need to fill, and I fill it with worship, devotion, and love for a Jesus of Christian legend. The Bible is fallacious to him, filled with mythical legends (as well as errors and contradictions), and silly beyond reason.
I wonder, though, how much faith is required to believe in the proffered theory of evolution--that matter originated or came into existence from non-matter? Or that all matter is merely eternal? Because if the entire universe was once compressed into a sphere smaller than the size of a pin, and of itself spontaneously and uncausedly burst into motion arbitrarily one day, then, not only does such a proposition betray science, but such a faith fails to explain the origin of that matter compressed into that sphere. Some-thing (some material object) cannot spring into being from no-thing (out of thin air or from no causal object). Design requires a Designer; creation a Creator; motion a Mover: that kind of materialist / naturalist faith requires far too much for me to reasonably concede. I mean, talk about a fairy tale, that matter can magically appear from nothing; that the movement of an object is self-moved; that intelligence can evolve by mere will. What nonsense!
WHY I BELIEVE
As I was thinking over his issues, and my issues, I thought about the various reasons why I believe in the historical Jesus. But, when I refer to the "historical" Jesus, I am also referring to the Resurrected Jesus. In other words, for me, He is not merely a political figure of history, a social-justice hero, or a mere man of great renown. He is no mere philosopher, no mere great intellectual thinker, no mere social reformer. Jesus is the unique Son of God, Son of a human mother but not of a human father (God is His Father and Jesus is His Son--God the Son), who lived a sinless life, being the second member of the Trinity, died for sinners, was buried in a borrowed tomb, rose from the dead three days later, ascended back to God in Heaven and will return again as LORD (YWHW) and King to judge the living and the dead.
HISTORICAL JESUS STUDIES
If I am to concede the ignorant and damnably heretical views of John Dominic Crossan or the late John Shelby Spong and Marcus Borg and their woeful ilk--rank, unChristian, unregenerate heretics each one of them--concerning Jesus then I cannot maintain belief in the Jesus I just described. Their Jesus and the Jesus I worship are not the same Jesus--and there are false views of Jesus (2 Cor. 11:4). Their false Jesus is "a peasant Jewish Cynic."1 But, while I reject their Jesus, I do admire their candor regarding historical Jesus studies: they are correct to note that the diversity among historical Jesus scholars is "an academic embarrassment"--but not for the laughable reason they think.
Crossan writes: "It is impossible to avoid the suspicion that historical Jesus research is a very safe place to do theology and call it history, to do autobiography and call it biography."2 We must not assume that one can encounter the four-fold Gospel of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, without a proper understanding of the history, the culture, and theology of those first-century Jews, and also conclude with a proper view of who Jesus was and is today. But this is exactly what Jesus Seminar scholars accomplish. They claim to study the history, culture, and theology of first-century Jewish people and still conclude with a Jesus worlds apart from that of the New Testament. Upon what evidence? Academic embarrassment indeed! To call their methodology "academic" is to betray the etymology of the very word itself and to redefine it!
Who gets to decide what comprises a proper understanding of the historical Jesus? Robert Funk? John Dominic Crossan? John Shelby Spong? Marcus Borg? Bart Ehrman? May God Himself forbid! What of Craig Evans? Or Gary Habermas? Craig Keener? E.P. Sanders? Dale C. Allison? Mike Licona? Anthony Le Donne? Darrell Bock? N.T. Wright? John P. Meier? Craig Blomberg? At least these men are believers! Moreover, who gets to decide on who gets to decide? Whoever is chosen there will be those who disagree. Whoever is chosen will be challenged. How is authority measured? Each of us chooses to grant authority to those who think like us. What guides my understanding of Christ Jesus is the authority of holy Scripture--an academic stumbling block for unregenerate skeptics, agnostics, and atheistic non-believers.
FIRST-CENTURY EVIDENCE OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS
Dr. Craig S. Keener asserts that first-century biographies, such as we find in the Christian scriptures, are tantamount to historical biographies; and that, "although biographies could serve a wide range of literary functions, ancient biographers intended their works to be historical than novelistic."3 Thus what we read in the Gospel accounts recorded in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John regarding the life and times of Jesus are not merely parabolic in nature, or what could relate to legend, but to actual historical verity. For those who think that these texts contain errors as to the Person and teachings of Jesus, and thus they cannot be trusted historically, Dr. Keener remarks: Naturally we have "a range of works sometimes classified as biography. Yet where these biographies' information is inaccurate, they do not thereby become novels. As some literary critics have pointed out, even when historical works have incorrect facts they do not become fiction, and a novel that depends on historical information [e.g., Sir Walter Scott, Philippa Gregory] does not become history."4
Commensurate with these facts, N.T. Wright (whose views on the atonement of Christ I find utterly disgusting, offensive, and overtly and damnably heretical) sets our task before us: When engaging the text of first-century Gospel accounts, we "examine the known actions of the subject (not to exclude words, but to set them in their fullest context), and to see what may be deduced from them." I think this is an excellent starting place, since words alone cannot be examined and thus interpreted apart from the historical reality of their historical contexts. He writes: "Actions, especially symbolic actions, speak louder than words. Studying actions, especially symbolic actions, is a far-better starting point for the historian than studying isolated sayings"5 (emphasis added), the latter of which is an embarrassing faux pas upon Jesus Seminar advocates, notably the damnably theological heretics like Crossan and the late Marcus Borg and John Shelby Spong.
We possess numerous eye-witness accounts of the historical Person we call Jesus.6 The accounts of His life and His messages are passed on orally through His disciples and others. Yet some, like E.P. Sanders, insist that Jesus' words and deeds are essentially "pulled out of their original context (in His own career) and thrust into another context, [that of] the disciples' preaching and teaching."7 How can he know this? If he is going to insist upon such conclusions then he must inform us as to how he knows what he is claiming to know. How can he possibly know that Jesus' words are "pulled out of their original context and thrust into another context" when all we have are the words of the authors who recorded Jesus' words? We have no original texts! The statement is outlandish! He cannot know such information regarding context because the only Text available he can use is the very Text he rejects! This is ludicrous and unacademic at best.
EXPERIENCES
I am not one to normally appeal to experience for evidential support on a magnitude such as Jesus studies. Yet I cannot deny that a great part of my belief in Jesus is due to an existenstial-experiential hermeneutic. In other words, my personal encounter with Him has deeply affected my life to such a degree that I cannot deny or explain away the changes belief in Him has effected within me--my psyche, my spirit, my personality and, really, my entire life. I usually do not appeal to experience because I know the Buddhist, the Muslim, or any other advocate of any other religious or even secular belief can make the same appeal. I have heard and I have read heart-wrenching personal testimonies of a Mormon, a Buddhist, a Jain, a Muslim and a Modalist regarding varying religiously-oriented experiences each one claims as some validity to their beliefs that I reject. In their opinions, my own experience with Jesus is no more and no less valid than their own, and this is utterly disheartening because Jesus is decisively exclusionary (John 14:1-6). He is the one and only way to God the Father--the one and only way to Heaven--the one and only way of salvation from sin and Hell and God's wrath. He Himself said so!
All I can claim about my own life is that, before trusting in Jesus, I had no interest in God and all that pertains to God or to the life of the world to come; neither did I love God, desire to worship and to follow God, nor care to live as He would have me live (though I often fail). While no one is capable of robbing me of this life-changing experience, I also understand its limits as being a viable witness to the historical reality of Jesus, who sits at the right hand of God. My experience will seem relative and subjective to non-believers or to believers of some other deity or religion. The truth of my changed life is irrefutable--that is objective even from the perspective of others who know me. I am changed. They have all witnessed the change. The cause for this change is attributed by me (and others) solely to God in Christ Jesus by the Holy Spirit through the Gospel. Detractors will argue for a psychosomatic or emotional cause. But of course they will--as is their way.
THE BIBLE
From my own experience I have concluded that the Bible is the single most trusted and distrusted book in the entire world. Both a best-seller and a much-despised and oft-neglected collection of songs, poetry, history and letters, the Bible is revered as the Judaeo-Christian holy book for both Jews and Christians, inspired by its Divine Author, the Creator of the universe: God, through Christ, in the Holy Spirit. From form criticism, redaction criticism, to structuralism, post-structuralism and social-scientific methods, our approach to a view of its contents determines what we believe about and how we interpret the scriptures. For someone who believes the Bible is authored by uneducated farmers and misogynistic fisherman, littered with errors, filled with legends, people engaged in historical Jesus studies can only conclude that the Man to whom the Gospels refer as "Jesus" is merely a myth at best and a lying psychopath at worst. God forbid the heresy!
For someone who believes that the Bible has God the Holy Spirit for its inspiration, such is granted an unquestioned degree of accepting the words on the pages regarding the historical Jesus. Dr. Craig Blomberg writes: "Much skepticism about the Gospels' reliability stems from faulty methods used in analyzing the Gospels or from faulty presuppositions on which those methods depend."8 With absolute certainty, critics of this statement can make the same charge to Blomberg and others who trust Scripture--that Blomberg and those of us who implicitly trust the words in Scripture operate within faulty methods used in analyzing the Gospels or from faulty presuppositions on which those faulty methods depend, such as that God is the Author of Scripture. Those who refuse to believe find their own self-appointed justifications for their unbelief because that is what unbelievers do--they do not believe--they cannot believe because they refuse to believe.
CERTAINTY CHALLENGED
Daniel Taylor, in his book The Myth of Certainty, writes: "How to find truth, that is the question, and how to know that one has found it. Nothing has so occupied reflective men and women for as long as we have record; nothing has elicited more anguish and struggle. Nothing, also, has created such a climate for despair and irresponsibility as the modern conviction that the word [spoken or written] no longer has much meaning."9 Whatever beliefs one holds, he thinks that objective truth has been discovered. Yet we all disagree on so many topics; and even among those of us who have many agreements, we disagree on some points, no matter how minute the issue. Taylor continues: "Of the many possible avenues to truth, two of the most traveled are reason and faith. What simple names for activities so complex and diverse by themselves, let alone when brought into relationship with one another."10 I believe in the historical New Testament Jesus--as well as in my life-changing experience with Him in 1995 (and even to this day), and that the Bible is the authoritative Word of God--because I reason that such a belief is viable, justifiable, even plausible. I think I have reason to believe. I think my reasons for believing are valid for everyone.
THE FACULTY OF REASON
I also believe that reason is a gift of God to us as creatures created by the hands of God Himself (Gen. 1:26, 27; 2:7; 5:1, 2; 9:6; Deut. 4:32; Job 4:17; 10:8, 9, 10, 11, 12; 31:15; 33:4; 34:19; Ps. 8:3, 4, 5, 6; 89:47; 95:6; 100:3; 104:30; 119:73, 74; 138:8; 139:13-16; Eccl. 3:11; 12:7; Isa. 17:7; 42:5; 43:7; 44:24; 49:5; 64:8; Jer. 1:5; 27:5; Zech. 12:1; Mal. 2:10; Matt. 19:4; John 1:3; Acts 17:26, 27, 28; 1 Cor. 8:6; Gal. 1:15; Eph. 3:9; Col. 1:16; 3:10; Heb. 3:4; James 3:9; Rev. 4:11). "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD" (Isa. 1:18 KJV). Here both God and Isaiah use the faculty of their reason. The reference here to reason, Heb. yakach--to adjudge, to decide, to prove, to argue--is contextualized within the framework of Isaiah's fallen experience (he is one who sins). In other words, the omniscient God of Israel, understanding that Isaiah is operating in a post-fall creation-order, still communicates with him by use of his human reason. So his reason is still intact even though sin has entered his own human context. Whatever we believe about human nature, and sin, what we cannot deny is some retention of our God-given reason.
REASON ALONE?
But one's reason alone is not at all-sufficient. My reason can err. We all, to one degree or another, whether knowingly or unknowingly perpetuate cognitive distortions or thinking (reasoning) errors. We may call it our "judgment"--we sometimes exhibit poor judgment. Some find belief in God reasonable yet fail to respond in faith. What some include in a notion of faith is a degree of grade, or quality of validity, a "justified true belief" related to one's reason. I reason that faith in Richard Dawkins' Flying Spaghetti Monster is unjustifiable. I cannot respond to Dawkins' mock-god with faith because I have no justification to reason that such an entity exists, and he already knows this--the Monster is merely a rhetorical ploy and one that fails miserably. We did not invent God the way he purposely invented his Spaghetti Monster. Our God graciously revealed Himself to mankind; and, by grace, He restores our reason to function adequately even if not yet perfectly.
We did not invent the historical Jesus. Ancient records indicate His existence--both secular and religious. I have justifiable cause to respond in faith to the historical Jesus of the Gospel accounts, a faith which corresponds with my reason, and I am in no sense threatened by critics, skeptics, and their challenges to this issue. Skeptics may present their cases against my claims, but my faith remains justified and unharmed by their criticisms, because my reason concurs and I, therefore, can with the integrity of reason and faith adhere to the historical eye-witness accounts of Jesus in the Gospel accounts. I can also reason that many folks were still alive (cf. 1 Cor. 15:6) during the writing of the Gospels, and early letters, and they could verify if there were inconsistent records of either Jesus' words or actions. No one came forth.
THE ROLE OF DOUBT
Should I encounter doubt (and I do at times), I can always appeal to my reason (renewed to a better state via regeneration) as well as to my faith in Christ and the Word of God, even if I cannot answer every question posed against my claims. In closing, Taylor writes, T.S. Eliot sees a certain kind of doubt as inevitable in matters of faith and correctly suggests that one's attitude toward doubt is more significant
than one's having doubt. "Every man who thinks and lives by thought must have his own skepticism ... that which ends in denial, or that which leads to faith and which is somehow integrated into the faith which transcends it." The notion of transcending doubt by accepting it into faith, rather than by suppressing it (for it can never be [entirely] destroyed [in this life]), is crucial. Perhaps doubt, rather than something to be crushed [or entirely eradicated], can be made to serve faith11 (emphasis added).This reminds me of the apostle Paul's conclusion to the Corinthian believers: "As a result of all this, my loved brothers and sisters, you must stand firm, unshakable, excelling in the work of the Lord as always, because you know that your labor isn't going to be for nothing in the Lord" (1 Cor. 15:58 Common English Bible). Stand firm, unshakable, in spite of any and all circumstances, even hard questions of doubt, pressing on: by the grace of God I can embrace my doubts and actually use them to serve and strengthen my faith in the historical, the past-eternal, the ever-present and the forever-future Jesus Christ, God-enfleshed, God the Son, Savior, LORD, Redeemer, Judge and King.
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1 John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (New York: HarperOne, 1992), 421.
2 Ibid., xxviii.
3 Craig S. Keener, The Historical Jesus of the Gospels (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2009), 79.
4 Ibid., 81. Scripture, we argue, is not a collection of myths (2 Peter 1:16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21).
5 N.T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God: Christian Origins and the Question of God, Volume 2 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996), 141.
6 "The primary sources for Jesus were written nearer his own lifetime, and people who had known him were still alive. That is one of the reasons for saying that in some ways we know more about Jesus than about Alexander [the Great]." See E.P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus (New York: Penguin Books, 1995), 3-4.
7 Ibid., 59.
8 Craig L. Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of the Gospels (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1987), xvii.
9 Daniel Taylor, The Myth of Certainty: The Reflective Christian and the Risk of Commitment (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1992), 66.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid., 80.
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