The Truth About the Historical Jesus

September 2008

In the 1970s, for the first time in two centuries, the main scene of activity left Germany. It first moved to England, and soon after to the United States. The principal emphasis lay not on the Hellenistic background of the early church as in form criticism but on the Jewishness of Jesus in the wake of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the renewal of research into post-Biblical Judaism and Flavius Josephus, the Jewish historian of the 1st century AD.

The trend is clearly shown by the new titles: Jesus the Jew (1973), Jesus and Judaism (1985), The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (1991); A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus (1991-2001) and Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews: A Jewish Life and the Emergence of Christianity (1999).

Indeed, during the past quarter of a century, in one way or another, the Jewish Jesus has become the dominant figure in New Testament scholarship, pursued by all researchers with or without religious belief.

Now let’s face the main issue. The student investigating the problem of the historical Jesus is confronted with a concatenation of difficulties.

Everyone except the desperately naive knows that the Gospel sources are not strictly historical and postdate the events by decades. The earlier letters of St Paul won’t help as their author never knew, or showed interest in, the Jesus of flesh and blood. The four Gospels, written between some 15 to 55 years after Paul, in the form of biographies, formulate Jesus’s teaching adapted for the needs of the early church.

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bor

September 6th, 2008
1:09 PM

'Veracity vouchsafed by faith' is all well and good, but I still think there are two variables basic to any belief. First, a person has to be carrying the 'religion gene'. Following that, place imposes its reality. That is too say, have the 'gene' and come from a christian influence, and guess what? Dollars to donuts, people will fall somewhere along the bible line. Have the 'gene' and come from some other influence, and, bob's-yer-uncle!! This is as simple as it gets.

Jon

September 6th, 2008
5:09 AM

"To conclude, because of the cross, the task of Jesus remained unfinished." I am confused. What was unfinished? His purpose and mission was the cross. In John 19:30 he says "It is finished" just before dying on the cross.

bipolar2

September 5th, 2008
9:09 PM

** what would Luthor do? ** Too bad this isn't a parody site, complete with parody responses. Amazing how fatuous the claims of the big-3 monotheisms sound. They are equally odious and equally dispensable as ethical or ideological guides. Enough of bibliolators indulging in mere scripticism. -- What they claim has no more intellectual integrity or moral value than drunken geeks parsing comix at a Superman convention. What a fictionalized culture hero "Jesus" or "Moses" or "Mohammed" would do is irrelevant. As irrelevant as what Hercules, Sherlock Holmes, or Lex Luthor would do. Believers of every stripe and dung beetle academics of every hue -- it's over. Xian, judaic, islamic, zoroastrian mythologies are meaningless. Time has long since passed -- your rice bowls will be broken. bipolar2

Anonymous

September 5th, 2008
8:09 PM

In regards to the resurrection: I heard a fact a few years back that Romans specifically outlawed grave robbing in the 1st Century. This "could" be linked to the story of the resurrection? I can't confirm this fact, however. So take this account at face value only.

Eliyahu

September 5th, 2008
4:09 AM

A bit of a tiptoe through the tulips, but not very enlightening or scholarly. How about a Jewish Ribi named Yehoshua who came to call only the Jews that had strayed from Torah back to Torah. How about the Mashiach who would fight the battles of HaSheim which was to heal the breaches in Torah. What is this misojudaic term Palestine. The term which was only created after the second war of 135. No, this article may be closer to the truth but it is a far way off still. By the way if you don't mind I will call Geza, Georgine. After all that would only be right. Helloooo J-e-s-u-s never existed. As you said so weakly "a form......would have perplexed......" so Yehoshua would have been incensed to be called J-e-s-u-s, a non-existant Roman idol.

Anonymous

September 4th, 2008
9:09 PM

Jesus resurrection is as historical fact as Jesus curing the leper. Mr Vermes don ´t question Jesus supernatural powers. They are indeed the "authority" of his learnig. And the fact is attested by a handful hundred of people, Paul said in his epistles. It deserves some consideration, like so many historical facts taken like truth but more scarcely attested. I read your classical book, Mr Vermes, Jesus the Jew, and I will read this one you say. Thanks for the counsel and the article.

Geza Vermes

September 4th, 2008
2:09 PM

Those interested in my views concerning the resurrection of Jesus should glance at my book, The Resurrection, published by Penguin earlier this year.

Richard

September 4th, 2008
12:09 PM

A more than interesting summary of scholarship and remaining challenges. The damage done through misconception and misrepresentation of Jesus is beyond calculation -- and with unlimited potential to recur. Hence the great value of such analysis in triaging human bad behavior. Finally, it is well to omit discussion of the resurrection, a thoroughly vexatious topic, in a text addressing the "likely historical"reception of Jesus -- one actor among many in the religious theater of his times.

Anonymous

September 3rd, 2008
12:09 PM

An interesting article but Vermes don ´t mention resurrection. And I think in this very point his paralelism with the other prophet Hanina Ben Dosa crumbles and disappears. The christians believe for Christ ´s resurrection ´s sake, said Paul. And Vermes omits the miracolous thing: a depressed team, Christ ´s group, runing to convince all the world of their Master ´s resurrection. By the way, Vermes don ´t mention the Facts of the Apostles, as canonical writing as the gospels and surely writeen by one of the evangelists.

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