Historical Jesus Contrarian – Scot McKnight

Jesus Creed: Historical Jesus Contrarian  Scot McKnight

Scot McKnight writes about his contrarian view on historical Jesus studies, contrasting it with understanding Jesus in a historical context. He makes five points:

Point 1: My contention is that historical Jesus studies are all about reconstructing what Jesus was really like. They are the attempt to get behind the Gospels (and the Creed) to the real Jesus, the one who walked and taught and ministered in the Galilee and Judea.

Point 2: My contention is further that this reconstruction occurs over against the church's Jesus, which is found in the Gospels (four presentations, not four "gospels" — not four "Jesuses" either, but four gospels presenting the Story of the one Jesus in four ways) and then developed even more in the Creed. The point of departure for historical Jesus studies is that the church either got Jesus wrong or said too much. The historical Jesus will be the real Jesus over against the church's more theologized Jesus. …

Point 3: And my contention is that historical Jesus studies, because it is all about reconstructing Jesus over against what the church has always believed, are of no use to the church. …

Point 4: My contention, further, is that "examining the Jesus of the Gospels [canonical Jesus] in his Jewish context" is not the same as "historical Jesus studies."…

Point 5: And my contention is that the Gospels are already interpretations of Jesus, that is, the Gospel writers were "historians" in some sense and strung together facts about Jesus into a narrative that was designed to "gospel" Jesus to its readers.

Reading this reminded me of a quote from Craig Hill's book, In God's Time: The Bible and the Future. Hill is writing about academic efforts to get to the "real" Jesus behind the gospels when he writes:

Can one bypass the New Testament and get directly to Jesus? Only if one is content to find a projection of oneself. To know and to listen to Jesus necessarily means knowing and listening to Matthew and John and Paul. The New Testament books are irreplaceable guides into an otherwise inaccessible territory; they are the gold standard against which all claims about Jesus must be tested. (26)