Dethroning Jesusanity

I just finished reading the recent book Dethroning Jesus: Exposing Popular Culture’s Quest to Unseat the Biblical Christ by Darrell Bock and Daniel Wallace. My overall impression is that it makes some valid points, but because on the whole the book is dedicated to toeing the authors’ understanding of the conservative theological party line, most of what could have been valuable in the book is thereby undermined. It is a book that arises out of seemingly unexamined, deep-rooted presuppositions, and will thus probably have little to say to those who don’t share the authors’ assumptions about how the questions should be approached.

A major problem with the book is that it lumps together the work of scholars like Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan with the Jesus tomb documentary and other such subjects, giving the impression that they are all dialogue partners of the same sort. Indeed, it is worse than that. Scholars and sensationalist filmmakers are lumped together under the subtitle’s category of “popular culture” while Bock and Wallace are presumably allied with the other category, “the Biblical Christ”. The problem with this distinction, which corresponds to their categories of “Jesusanity” vs. “Christianity”, is that the latter is assumed to be the default position in much the way supernatural creation is by young-earth creationists. The authors seem to believe that, if they can pick enough holes in their opponents’ arguments, then that demonstrates the validity of their own views. Although the authors make a fair point about there being more than two possible views (p.25), and seem willing to admit that their dialogue partners are right about many things, this certainly does not lead them to critically re-examine any significant component of the typical North American conservative Christian worldview. In other words, they at times offer valid criticisms of recent publications, but instead of offering a better, more critical examination of the subjects, they revert to their presuppositions. The book thus highlights problems, but offers no solutions.

The book starts off with a mythologized view of memory in ancient societies, a view fairly common among conservative Christians but not supported by recent research on oral cultures and oral tradition (pp.1-3). The authors then define Jesusanity as that which results from historical critical approaches to sources and historical skepticism in general (pp.4-5, 16-17), with particular “blame” being laid at the feet of universities (p.21). To be honest, such a description makes Jesusanity seem pretty appealing, since the alternative they offer is an uncritical acceptance of the Jesus in whom the early Christians placed their faith, the risen and exalted one, but without making an adequate attempt to assess how the “Christ of faith” relates to the Jesus of history, who is the focus of “Jesusanity”.

Fair points are made about textual criticism, and much is done that is positive to challenge the impression that many people get from books like Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus that we do not have a very good idea of what the originals of the New Testament documents looked like. It quotes the apologists’ numbers of the thousands of New Testament manuscripts we have (p.51), but to be fair, it also quotes the relevant number – more than four dozen from within the first two centuries (p.50). The sheer number of manuscripts is of course irrelevant – if everyone who reads this blog makes an additional copy of a Greek manuscript, the number will go up, but not in a way that impacts the accuracy or inaccuracy of the text. But the truth is that we do have very early copies, and so while Ehrman’s points about the uncertainties and problems are valid, they do not undermine our overall confidence that we have a good sense of what Paul wrote (to give one example).

The valid points are marred, however, by conservative assumptions about things like authorship. How can one have a fair discussion of the unity and diversity of earliest Christianity if one assumes that the definition given in 1 John is that of an eyewitness and member of the inner circle of apostles (p.82)? The authors seem to have a limited understanding of the nature of Gnosticism. On p.101 they write that “Jews and early Christians would not have been attracted to a creation story in which the God of Israel is a fourth-rate deity.” But this is completely wrong. It was within the matrix of Judaism and/or Christianity that Gnosticism arose, or at the very least in dialogue with it. Unless one accepts the authority of Genesis in some real sense, Gnosticism cannot arise, since the Genesis account is taken as an accurate, literal account of creation – and that is precisely the problem, namely why a good God would behave in the ways depicted in the Jewish Scriptures, and create a material world that gives grief to those that inhabit it. Apart from a close connection to Judaism and/or Christianity, Gnosticism cannot appear. (This is a point that I hope to make in a separate post in relation to Lupieri’s book The Mandaeans).

The discussion of the material in the Gospel of Thomas is marred by a focus only on the date of written documents, with no allowance for the possibility that relatively late texts may reflect independent knowledge of authentic early forms of sayings and stories (pp.114-115). The authors express their bewilderment at why Thomas is valued more highly than John by scholars interested in the historical figure of Jesus (p.119). Yet the answer is simple: the parables and aphorisms of Thomas resemble the authentic sayings of Jesus in a way John’s monologues in the unique Johannine style do not. In general it is the form of sayings found in Thomas, but are also known from the Synoptics as well, that some scholars are inclined to regard as authentic, and not (with one exception) the content unique to Thomas. This is precisely because form critical investigations had already led scholars to posit such forms as the likely more original ones even before the Gospel of Thomas was found. Nevertheless, Bock and Wallace are fair to speak of Thomas’ “wax nose” (p.130) and suggest that one reason for the popularity of Thomas is its flexibility. It is easier to find there what one is looking for. Unless one is a conservative Christian, of course – then what one is looking for is more easily found in the canonical Gospels (read through the appropriate framework and with the appropriate presuppositions), so it is not surprising that most in the latter category prefer to look there.

The most baffling statement in the book is that “the Gospels intentionally subject themselves to historical inquiry” (p.128). I’ve never seen books subject themselves to anything. This rather silly statement is connected with Paul’s reference to 500 who saw Jesus alive (1 Corinthians 15:6), which is of course a very weak hearsay argument. I’ve heard that large numbers of people, including at least some still alive today, all saw the Virgin Mary, or (in another instance) a UFO, but if I pass on that story to you now, it has no evidentiary weight. It is hearsay, which I got from others. I was neither one of the witnesses, nor did I speak directly to any of them. In Paul’s case, we have no idea whether Paul spoke directly to one of those 500 or not. The authors are engaging in apologetics when they quote such passages, and not what historians regard as historical inquiry.

I will try on some other occasion to discuss the substitutionary idea of atonement. It is not there in the Bible, yet in typical fashion Bock and Wallace manage to read it into just about every place they look. I’ll just point readers to 2 Corinthians 5:14-15, where Paul says not that one died for all, because all should have died, but Christ took our place, dying instead of us; but rather Paul says that one died for all, and therefore all died. I’ll talk on another occasion about what this does mean, but it is clearly not penal substitution, the most popular understanding of the atonement among conservative Evangelicals.

The authors show that, at the end of the book, they have altogether missed the point that authors like Borg and Crossan have made about stories as parables. They argue that Thomas would not be persuaded by a parable or story, but only by an actual historical encounter with the risen Jesus (p.165). Can you see what is in their blind spot? They are assuming that this story is a factual historical account! Yet that is the very issue, and they fail to address it adequately. Their statement that visions and spiritual experiences could not account for the “sure hope” of the early disciples after Easter just shows that they must not themselves have had such experiences. Those of us who have know their power to transform our lives – just as those of us who have reflected critically about them know that they cannot be used to circumvent the need for evidence in addressing historical questions.

The conclusion of the book shows clearly the authors’ aim: they want the exalted Jesus of early Christian sources, without the troubling matters, doubts and uncertainties connected with historical investigation. In short, if you don’t care about whether the Jesus you worship has anything to do with the actual historical figure Jesus of Nazareth (one of the twenty or so significant individuals named Jesus who lived in this period – p.203), then there is nothing stopping you from following Bock and Wallace’s understanding of Christianity. On the other hand, if you find you cannot set aside historical questions, then perhaps Jesusanity is more appealing than these authors suggest. But it is not just historical study that raises questions about Bock and Wallace’s views. The Bible itself does not fit neatly into the uniform vision of early Christianity they offer. And that being the case, the reader is left with the impression that Bock and Wallace have no anchor for their beliefs other than their own conservative Evangelical presuppositions and worldview, since their views are not connected in any fundamental either to the historical Jesus or to the New Testament in all its intriguing diversity.