Methodological Considerations

The various quests for historical Jesus have demonstrated that there is at least some
difference between the Christ proclaimed by Christians Tradition and the Jesus of history.

What does the study of Christ (Christology) make sense to the issue?

The invitation is, Christology of today need to be critical using literary and historical
disciplines that have been developed in the last two hundred.

COSIDERATIONS:

1. The transition from a pre critical to critical Christology

2. We will look at the stages in the development of the Gospel Tradition.

3. We will outline some criteria for discerning the historical Jesus within the Gospel tradition.

From Pre-Critical to Critical Christology

While the Church has brought critical reflection to bear on the biblical presentation of
its faith from the beginning Bible as source was not challenged. As God’s word and as sacred
history, it provided a record of God’s saving acts, creation through redemption, and in
establishment of the Church.

The Biblical story in its entirety functioned as a prescientific world view that was taken
literally;

The names of Copernicus, Galileo, and Darwin are those who challenged any part of it were
disciplined by the Church or rejected by the believing community.

The Bible also functioned as the basic Christians symbol system,” the meta-story each
individual and communal Christians story is patterned.

CRITICS OF EARLY SCHOLARS AND THEOLOGIANS

Marcion- rejected the OT on the basis of his theological view of God and tried to reduce the
four Gospels to one.

Tatian- recognizing differences in chronology and detail in the four Gospels, attempted in hi
Diateassaron to harmonize them into one continuous narrative.

Origen- made the first attempt at textual criticism of the OT.

- He emphasizes the importance of hermeneutics or theory of interpretation.

Augustine - in his De consensus evangelistarum recognized that the order of the Gospel
narratives was based on recollection rather than strict chronological history and that the
words of Jesus were not always reported verbatim.

In spite of early efforts at a more critical interpretation, modern biblical scholars

generally characterize biblical scholarship up to the seventeenth as “precritical”

Richard Simon- French Oratorian priest, considered the father of the modern biblical criticism.

Modern biblical criticism- the discipline remains very much a product of “modernity”
Modernity- the mentality at the basis of the modern culture.

- This modernity has its roots in the scientific verification in the 17th Century that asks
for empirical verification

- Enlightened on 18th Century with gloried autonomous reason.

Thus, it was freed from the constraint of Biblical supernaturalism, theological dogma, and

Church authority.
(The enlightenment rationalism and scientific methods to the Bible was historical- critical method)

Reimarus foreshadowed this approach and it was Tbingen who developed the various

historical and literary methods of investigating biblical texts (form criticism, source criticism,
text criticism…)

Modern Biblical Scholarship and the Catholic Church

The Catholic Church perceived the Enlightenment as an attack on the Church and on
Christianity in general; thus it rejected the new scholarship coming out of Germany as one if
its fruits.
“Catholic theology retired into a dogmatic corner, while avant-
garde allied Protestant theology itself with the spirit of time”
- Ben Meyer
Pope Leo XIII- he founded the Pontifical Biblical Commission (PBC) in 1902, a Roman
congregation charge with overseeing use of the Bible in the Church.

Between 1905-1915, the PBC issued a series of decisions requiring Catholic scholars to
hold positions that the new scholarship was challenging, including substantial Mosaic
authorship of the Pentateuch, the historical nature of the first chapters of Genesis, the single
authorship of Isaiah, the priority of Matthew, and Paul as the author of the Hebrews.
DIVINO AFFLANTE SPIRITU
- Pope Pius XII
- Often called the Magna Carta of the Catholic biblical scholarship.
A document that instructs the Catholic scholars to base their translation on the
original Hebrew and Greek texts and encourages them to use the new historical and literary
methods in their study of these texts. Simply, the Church now allows biblical scholars and
theologians to use a scientific approach.

However, “they must avoid that somewhat indiscreet zeal which considers everything
new to be for that very reason a fit object of attack or suspicion” - Pope Pius XII

Instruction on the Historical Truth of the Gospel (1964)

- 1964 instruction of the PBC stresses that;

The Gospels are not literal, chronological accounts of the word and deed of Jesus.
Nevertheless, the products of three-stage development that moves (1) from the ministry of
Jesus (2) through the oral preaching of the Apostles, (3) to the actual writing of the Gospels
by the evangelists.

The instruction teaches that words and deeds attributed to Jesus may really come
from the preaching of the early Christian communities or from the particular evangelists who
selected from, synthesized, adapted, and explicated the material he received.

By this way, are the Gospel reliable sources?

“The truth of the story is not affected by the fact that Evangelists relate the words and deeds
of the Lord in a different order, and express his sayings not literally but differently, while
preserving the sense” (no. XII)

Dei Verbum (1965)

-Dei Verbum, the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation.

It understand revelation as God’s self-communication in history which reaches its fullness in

the Person of Jesus and through life in the Spirit offers men and women share in God’s own
divine nature.
- Approach must be personal rather propositional.
Dei Verbum affirms that the Scriptures are inspired; but it also emphasizes that the biblical
writers are the “true authors”, making use of their own human fashion,” biblical interpreters
must carefully seek out the meaning that the authors had in mind, paying attention to the
literary forms used;

The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church (1993)

-Reaffirmed the necessity of historical- critical study of Scripture.

This document is critical particularly on fundamentalism.

Acknowledging that fundamentalism is correct to insist on the divine inspiration of the Bible
and the inerrancy of the word of God, it asserts, “Its way of presenting truths is rooted in an
ideology which is not biblical.”

- thus, it fails to take into account the historical character of biblical revelation, its
“undue stress on the inerrancy of certain details in the biblical texts, especially in what
concerns historical events or supposed scientific truths”, its tendency to confuse “the final
stage of the tradition(what the evangelist have written) with the initial (words and deeds of
historical Jesus)

In summary, the PBC holds that to say that Jesus is the Christ is to invoke both faith
and history. A critical Christology needs to do both. We can express the presuppositions of
such a Christology in the following five presuppositions.

a. The Gospels are testimonies of faith, not histories or biographies in the modern
sense.
b. The Gospels contain historical material; but to recover that material, they must be
read critically, using the historical-critical method.
c. The context for Christology must remain the faith of the Church, expressed in its
Scriptures, its creeds, and its liturgy, for without that faith, the story of Jesus is incomplete.
d. The Church’s Christological faith must be grounded in the historical Jesus; therefore
the historical-critical method is essential for the task of Christology.
e. The historical Jesus must be understood from the perspective of the Jewish religious
tradition which grounded his religious worldview and shaped his religious imagination.

The Development of the Gospel Tradition

 A.) The four Gospels represent the end products of a long process of development
extending over some sixty or more years of Christian preaching, catechetical instruction,
teaching, worship, and theological reflection on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
1. Gospels represent the preaching of the early Christians in written form.
Like good preachers, the evangelists often reshaped the Jesus tradition they
received in light of the needs of their respective communities.
2. Represent development in the Church’s understanding of the mystery of Christ.
Disciples did not perceive the divinity of Jesus during his public ministry.
Earliest Christian communities did not immediately proclaim Jesus as the eternal
Son of God.
3. New Testament books developed over seventy years.
(See chronology on 29 and 30)

The Synoptic Problem

1. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are the Synoptic Gospels- common perspective. Interrelationship
between the three called the “Synoptic Problem.”

- Traditional order- Matthew, Mark, and then Luke. Priority of Mark given during 18th
century.
- Mark’s 661 verses, Matthew includes all but 40-50, and Luke about 350.
- 220 verses common to Matthew and Luke but not found in Mark; “Double Tradition.”
- Identified as “Q,” consists of sayings of Jesus, Sermon on the Mount, and the “Lord’s
Prayer,” as well as some parables.
- Originated in Palestine or Syria within two generations of the death of Jesus.
- Aramaic phases, editorial activity.
- “Each Gospel has material unique to itself, some 50 verses in Mark, 315-330 in
Matthew, and 500-600 in Luke.”

Stages in Development of the Gospel Tradition

Gospel tradition through three stages
(1) The words and deeds of Jesus (28-30 CE),
(2) The preaching of the apostles (30-70 CE),
(3) The writing of the Gospels (70- 100).

First Stage: The Words and Deeds of the Jesus of History

Words Jesus spoke, stories and parables, and events.
 Earliest form of the Beatitudes, Lord’s Prayer, the word Abba, the expression
kingdom of God, and a number of sayings.

Second Stage: The Apostolic Preaching

a. The apostles repeated sayings of Jesus, proclaimed his teachings, and retold his
parables and the stories of his life and death. They interpreted His words and deeds
according to the needs of their listeners. Used different modes of speaking and literary forms
familiar to them from Scripture
Forms:
Easter kerygma: resurrection of Jesus with witnesses; the point of the kerygma was
to bring others to new life in Christ.
Sayings of Jesus: logia or sayings in the narrow sense, prophetic and sayings, and
laws or community regulations.
Stories about Jesus: Stories about Jesus, his baptism, ministry, etc.
Parables: Stories or parables Jesus used to present his messages.
Miracle stories: Miracles of Jesus; frequently magnified, expanded, and gathered
into collections. Exorcisms. Three-point pattern: circumstance, miracle, result.
Liturgical formulas: Some traditions come from the liturgical and life of the early
communities.
Easter Stories: Some stories about the discovery of the empty tomb, others about
risen Jesus to his disciples.
Hymns: hymns used by early communities.
Christological Titles: Titles for Jesus, each implied a different Christology.

Third Stage: The Writing of the Gospels

a. Evangelists were not eyewitness to Jesus’ ministry, but drew from a lot of tradition, editing
material according to his own insights and gifts and shaping it according to the needs of the
community for whom he was writing.
b. Each had a unique point of view, different background, and different situation.
Mark, possible Jewish Christian with ties to Palestinian Jewish Christianity. Locale
difficult to discern.
Matthew written after the final break between Jewish Christians and community
around 80 CE.
Luke was a Gentile Christian from Antioch. Convert to Judaism, then convert to
Christianity. Most polished in Greek. Gospel and Acts, to Gentile Christians related to
the Pauline mission.
John’s Gospel most complex and it is independent fop the Synoptic tradition.
Based on the tradition of the “Beloved disciple.”
Recovering the Historical Jesus
 A. Story of Jesus must be placed within the religious world of a first century Palestinian
Jew. Worldview was formed by the Hebrew Scriptures.
B. Over the years biblical scholars have developed a number of criteria or principles
for Identifying authentic material, words and deeds that go back to Jesus himself.
What follows are five criteria developed by John Meier in his reconstruction of the
historical Jesus.
1. Embarrassment
Material about Jesus or the apostles that may have been embarrassing.
A sign that it comes from the first stage of the Gospel tradition and so is authentic.
2. Discontinuity
words or deeds of Jesus that do not reflect the practice of either Judaism the early
Church.
Saying or action contrary to what was taken for granted by the Jewish community
is probably authentic (e.g. Prohibition of all oaths, rejection of voluntary fasting,
prohibition of divorce.)
3. Multiple Attestation: multiple sources.
4. Coherence: Consistent with other historical sources.
should not be used negatively
5. Rejection and Execution
The historical Jesus, in his preaching and ministry, alienated powerful
constituencies.
This criterion seeks to find the words and/or deeds that provoked Jesus violent
end.
C. Doubtful Criteria
1. Traces of Aramaic: judging as authentic on the basis of traces of Aramaic vocab.
2. Palestinian Environment: Judging sayings of Jesus as authentic because they contain local
color.
3. Sayings with Formulas: Sayings that uses distinguished formulas used by Jesus.
4. Abba Sayings: Abba is an authentic Jesus word, does not mean it came from Jesus.
5. Vividness of Narration: just because a story is told in great detail doesn’t mean its
authentic.

CONCLUSION
1. Bible supplied narrative of faith, view of the natural world that was considered normative.
2. The approach that takes the Bible literally is precritical
3. Catholic Church embraces the historical-critical method.
4. Faith and reason are complementary in the study of the bible and theological reflection on
Jesus Christ (Christology).