In search of the historical Jesus

by Gunther Simmermacher · October 5, 2012

WHO IS JESUS: Linking the Historical Jesus with the Christ of Faith, by Darrell L Bock. Simon & Schuster, 2012. 256pp. ISBN: 9781439190685

Reviewed by G�nther Simmermacher

Almost every Easter a new television documentary, book or magazine article will purport to reveal findings which supposedly will change the way we understand Jesus. Most of them don�t. Still, the search for the historical Jesus continues, motivated by different objectives.

Darrell L Bock, research professor of New Testament studies at Dallas Theological Seminary in Texas, seeks to help create the conditions by which people of faith (including himself) and non-believers can locate common ground in the discussion of Jesus� historicity.

The study of the historical Jesus requires a set of rules by which gospel passages and other sources can be evaluated. In applying these rules � which are used by the Institute for Biblical Research Jesus Group, to which the author belongs � Bock sees himself as a trial prosecutor who eliminates all evidence that fails to verify the truth.

One of these rules is �corroboration�, the principle that testimony from a gospel must be supported by references elsewhere (including other gospels). This means that in historical Jesus scholarship almost all of John and half of Luke are out. This does not mean, however, that all eliminated material is therefore fictitious, but that these passages cannot be confirmed.

For example, the controversy of Jesus� healing ministry on the Sabbath is recorded by sources both supportive and antagonistic to Jesus. According to Bock, this substantiation suggests that some �exceptional acts� were being acknowledged as not having been made up.

Further rules require the examination of �common objections� by weighing up the relevant background to a gospel passage, and what it means to understanding the historical Jesus; and the principle of �embarrassment�. The latter refers to passages which portray Jesus or his disciples imperfectly and therefore would probably have been excised from evangelising texts had they not been true.

Some events are accepted to be true by broad consensus. Even the most guarded Jesus scholars accept that the Temple act � the overturning of the tables � actually happened. The debate centres on how to interpret it: was it a symbolic, messianic or political act?

Likewise, scholars agree that the Last Supper took place. Bock inspects the timing and nature of the meal as well as the naming of the betrayer, Judas (whom even the usually sceptical Jesus Seminar co-chair Dominic Crossan has called �too bad to be false�).

The author also discusses what was said at the Last Supper, a crucial question for Catholics in relation to the institution of the Eucharist. Alas, as a Protestant, Bock does not address the Catholic understanding.

Bock makes the debatable observation, shared by many Protestants, that the early Christians did not venerate the tomb of Christ. He correctly notes that there is no written record of any such site until three centuries after the crucifixion.

Nevertheless, the Christian memory had preserved the perceived insult of the pagan temple which Emperor Hadrian built above Golgotha in the 130s. So Jerusalem�s Bishop Macharius knew exactly where to dig in 326 AD once he had obtained the go-ahead to build the church of the Holy Sepulchre. And archaeology there has confirmed the gospels� description of Golgotha.

Moreover, an inscription on the rock below the temple�s exterior found in 1971, probably from the second or third century, seems to indicate that the site was a place of pilgrimage long before the church of the Holy Sepulchre was built there.

This does not detract from the book�s erudite and fair examination of twelve events which Bock persuasively argues are authentic, and which he chose in a bid to create a coherent narrative on Jesus� ministry, culminating in the empty tomb.

There are more gospel passages that can be confirmed by using Bock�s method; knowing the rules, the challenge to do so now resides with the reader.