The Historical Christ and the Jesus of Faith: The Incarnational Narrative as History

by C. Stephen Evans

The New Testament contains a story about Jesus of Nazareth. The Christian Church has always understood this narrative as the story of the Son of God, who redeemed the fallen human race by his life, death, and resurrection. Contemporary historical scholarship has, however, called into question the reliability of the church's version of the story; can such a story be historically true? After a careful reconsideration of the Enlightenment epistemologies that underlie much historical scholarship, this book argues that it can.

Genres: Theology, Philosophy, History, Biblical Studies, Christianity, Religion

400 pages, Paperback

First published April 18, 1996

About the author

C. Stephen Evans (b. Atlanta , Georgia) is an American historian and philosopher, he is one of the United States' leading experts on Søren Kierkegaard having published six books on Kierkegaard over 25 years. He is currently Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Humanities at Baylor University. He holds a B.A. with High Honors (philosophy), from Wheaton College, an M.Phil. (philosophy) from Yale University, and a Ph.D. (philosophy) from Yale University.

He has won numerous awards, and reviews manuscripts for several university presses, including Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, Princeton University Press, as well as Harper and Rowe. He does the same for several academic journals. He was curator of the Howard V. and Edna H. Hong Kierkegaard Library. He has organized several major conferences. He served five years on the the editorial board for Kierkegaard Monographs and for the International Kierkegaard Commentary Series. He is a past president of the Society of Christian Philosophers and the Søren Kierkegaard Society.

Reviews

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

AN APOLOGIST/PHILOSOPHER/PSYCHOLOGIST LOOKS AT THIS ISSUE

C. Stephen Evans is Professor of Philosophy and Humanities at Baylor University; he has also written 'Philosophy of Religion,' 'God and Moral Obligation,' 'Preserving the Person,' etc.

He wrote in the Preface to this 1996 book, "it is not really a work of apologetics... though I discuss the prospects for arguments designed to convince unbelievers of the historicity of the story, this is not itself such an argument. Rather, the book aims to give a convincing account as to why knowledge of the story is important, and also argues that ordinary people who claim to have knowledge of the truth of the story of Jesus of Nazareth may be quite reasonable in making such a claim. Specifically, I claim that the reasonableness of such a claim is not undermined by modern critical biblical scholarship... However, the book is by no means addressed solely to a Christian audience." (Pg. vii)

He admits, "There are well-known difficulties with the harmonization of the four Gospels. The Gospels not only present differences in coverage and emphases, but certainly appear to contain inconsistencies. I take it that most of these difficulties concern the details and not the major outlines of the story, and thus that it is possible to read the New Testament as providing a BASICALLY coherent narrative about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus... it continues to be read in that way, even by individuals who are well aware of the results of contemporary biblical scholarship." (Pg. 5)

He suggests, "I don't wish to conclude ... that responsible attempts to discover the historical truth about the matter are impossible and should not be attempted. I merely wish to note that the history of such attempts suggests very strongly that all 'selective' readings of the historical data... are likely to be strongly influenced by the critic's own assumptions about what a religiously important figure should be like." (Pg. 41)

He also admits, "a careful reader of the four Gospel accounts is struck by many differences between them. What appears to be the same incident is often described in significantly different ways, and as occurring at different times and in different orders. What appears to be the same speech differs from one account to the other... Of course in some cases the narratives could be talking about two distinct though similar incidents, and it is very possible that Jesus as a teacher may have varied his teaching from occasion to occasion. However, attempts to 'harmonize' the differences in this way are not always plausible. For example, with respect to the story of the resurrection, there are differences in the number of people who are said to go to the tomb, the time of their going, and so forth." (Pg. 311)

This refreshingly frank book will be of great interest to those Christians who want to examine the issues concerning contemporary "historical Jesus" studies.

[Jaden A · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a true gem. The crux of Evans's book concerns a critique of the Enlightenment paradigm of epistemology and ethics of belief, Classical Foundationalism in particular. Evans critiques the epistemic theory of an internalist, evidentialist account of knowledge, i.e., that “I must know [something]...on the basis of evidence of which I am aware or at least of which I could become aware…” and argues in favor of externalism, i.e., that theory that commends the idea that “...beliefs formed by...a [belief-forming] process might constitute knowledge even if I am not aware of any evidence for the belief” (186).

Evans canvasses the particular form of externalism known as Reformed Epistemology (Plantinga, Alston, etc.) and applies this theory to how Christians come to share in the belief of the incarnational narrative (or the “great things of the Gospel” to borrow Johnathan Edwards phraseology) in a way that does not require one to supply “evidence” in the internalist sense.

However, a keen idea of Evans is that in the case of apologetics, providing evidence for one’s beliefs does not make oneself an “evidentialist” in the internalist sense above. In other words, a person can fail to show that they know something, but that does not itself entail that the person does not know the thing in question. Why? Because the belief or set of beliefs that they attained were produced through a belief-forming process.

Thus, if one adopts an externalist epistemology, one can bridge Reformed Epistemology and traditional arguments for God’s existence, historical arguments for the Resurrection, etc. Rather than being opposed apologetical accounts, each can complement each other if externalism is excepted as one’s epistemological theory.

Aside from this, Evans offers critical insight into the possibility of miracles, the incarnation, and so-called “higher criticism,” illustrating how one’s philosophical commitments become the lens through which evidence is interpreted, thus leading to differing conclusions from religious believers.

My only complaint with Evans is that he holds to a Kenotic model of Christology. Granted, he only mentions it briefly twice throughout the book and it is not a topic of large discussion. Other than that, this book is one that ought to be appreciated.

[Philip Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

What happens when a Christian philosopher essentially takes the tools and questions of epistemology and applies them to the canonical written Gospels? This book. In fact, I think the best part of the book for me was the piercing honesty of the questions. The whole point of the book could be summed up in the question - is the founding narrative of the Christian faith credible? Evans says that "... there is a great difference between a story which reveals truth about someone, and an actual series of events which makes possible a relation with that someone."

Evans even wades in to the whole issue of those who haven't heard the Gospel in chapter 5 - "Awareness of the Narrative - Do We Need to Know?" His questions in this chapter are:
- What would it mean for God to act in a strictly egalitarian manner?
- Would it mean that all human persons are entitled to equal amounts of every kind of goodness?
- Should God have created all humans with equal capacities for intelligence, musical creativity, and emotional empathy?
- Should God guarantee that all humans have equally good educations and equal amounts of nurturing love?
- If someone enjoys less of one kind of goodness should God compensate by ensuring the person enjoys more of some other good?
Should God have created all humans to have an equal life-span?

I have heard all of these questions, and more, from people I talk with about Christianity. Yet they are hard questions to answer and discuss. Evans does a good job of reaching towards some answers and ways to think about discussing them.

[Vince Eccles · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is a good book for those Christians who are uncertain about their faith. It is not an absolutist view of Christianity. Dr. Evans describes in his introduction that he was trying to relate the reasons for his faith to his fellow atheist and agnostics academics. The summary of the book might be 'the evidences and the coherence of the doctrine holds together as a reasonable worldview. Thus, it is reasonable to believe that Jesus is the God-human that traditional Christianity teaches.'

[Drew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not an easy read but an important book in many respects. I will say I should have perhaps taken the author’s advice in the introduction and skipped some chapters. Much of it was not easy to follow, but the concluding chapters were helpful. He does offer some strong epistemological rejoinders to much of the NT historical critical work of the 20th century.

[Robert Tessmer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fine book combining the philosophical and theological and focusing upon the narratives that undergird the belief that Jesus is the Incarnate God. The following link provides a good summary and review.

http://www3.nd.edu/~afreddos/papers/v...