The Elusive Messiah: A Philosophical Overview Of The Quest For The Historical Jesus

by Raymond Martin

What might the findings of researchers engaged in the quest for the historical Jesus mean to Christians? In posing this question and others, The Elusive Messiah opens a window for a new look at the age old problem of faith versus reason. Through readily understandable language and examples, Martin poses basic questions, looks for the answers, and explains how these answers correspond to larger issues. His accessible writing synthesizes complex academic arguments in ways that bring them down to earth, enabling Christians and other readers to understand what is being claimed and to test these claims for meaningfulness.

Genres: New Testament, Theology, Philosophy, Religion

254 pages, Paperback

First published May 11, 1999

Reviews

[Steven H · Rating 3 out of 5]

A PHILOSOPHER PROVIDES A SURVEY OF THE "HISTORICAL JESUS" RESEARCH

Raymond Martin (born 1941) is professor of philosophy at the University of Maryland; he has written other books such as 'God Matters: Readings in the Philosophy of Religion,' 'The Rise and Fall of Soul and Self: An Intellectual History of Personal Identity,' etc.

He wrote in the Preface to this 1999 book, "In the past several decades, there has been an explosion of interest in the quest for the historical Jesus. This renewed interest has generated a fierce debate among historians... The debate among historians has sparked another, equally heated, debate among historians, theologians, and interested onlookers... Virtually all of the books that have been published in these debates have been written by participants in order to advance their own proposals...

"The present book is addressed primarily to ordinary people rather than to scholars, and its goal is to inform ordinary people in a way that reduces the confusion... I try to provide an evenhanded, neutral overview of debates among historians over who Jesus was and over what evidence should be used to determine who he was... I try to provide an overview that fairly traces the main contours of the debate." (Pg. x)

He adds, "I am a philosopher... I am not a New Testament scholar or a theologian. I am not a historian of Jesus... I have no particular religious or antireligious beliefs." (Pg. x-xi)

He observes, "Though it is rarely suggested that Matthew copied from Luke, some scholars argue that Luke copied from Matthew. However, it counts heavily against the idea that either copied from the other that when all three of Matthew, Mark, and Luke have material in common, Matthew and Luke never agree with each other against Mark. Had either the author of Matthew copied from Luke or the author of Luke copied from Matthew, it seems that Matthew or Luke at least sometimes would have agreed with the other against Mark, either in wording or in inserting the same new material in the same place. This never happens." (Pg. 22)

He suggests, "one does not have to be a yahoo to think that a Christian's best response to the challenge posed by secular historical scholarship is the Only Faith response. There are thoughtful and articulate advocates of this response---not many, but some... the most highly visible of these ... is Luke [Timothy] Johnson... in his book 'The Real Jesus,' Johnson defends the Only Faith response... [but] does not defend the Only Faith response in a way that is wholly consistent. Often he wavers and makes concessions to the opposition that make his view as a whole hard to understand. In the final analysis, it may be that even he endorses the Faith Seeking Understanding response." (Pg. 148)

This book has some uses as an "overview" of recent Jesus research; I personally did not find this supposedly "neutral" philosophical perspective to be particularly enlightening, and would suggest that readers looking for more textually/historically "detailed" analyses look elsewhere.

[Telly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Marginal Jew, Sophia's prophet, Cynic sage? Who was Jesus? This book takes both a conservative and liberal approach towards historically defining Jesus. It is extremely eye-opening, informative, insightful and, perhaps, a bit shocking, but it definitely clearly and concisely written and extremely fair-minded and even-handed.

[Steve]

Martin specializes in the philosophy of historical methodology and deems to “use the quest for the historical Jesus as a way of exploring the relationship between the methods people use in investigating the world and what they take to be the results of their investigations” as well as find out “who Jesus was, what his message was, and why he made such a strong impression on so many people” (xi). He begins this analysis by dividing up his work into four parts: the challenges of science, history, and the current quest; the historical Jesus studies today; the relationship between history and theology; and the possible responses Christians have to the challenge posed by secular historical scholarship.
Martin begins in part one by an overview of the challenges of science, asserting that Christian religious belief has not only survived, but also flourished by being able to accommodate itself by making room for new scientific truth. While this might be the popular line concerning the challenge of science and faith, Martin does make a good point concerning central beliefs of Christianity and history: “If the historical stories that sustain these [central] beliefs are not true, then it would seem that Christianity is, at best, merely a generator of pious myths and, at worst, a fraud” (10). Martin provides a succinct and admirable survey of issues concerning New Testament scholars involving the synoptic problem (two-source theory, four-source theory, etc.) and the raging quest for the historical Jesus. Martin provides a concise overview of the history of the quest for Jesus starting with Reimarus and ending with the diversity of the current quest still underway.
While most surveys of Jesus studies divide the field up as either conservative and liberal, Martin provides another division to categorize the players in part two of his book. The two divisions are “conservative versus liberal” and “naturalistic interpretations versus non-naturalistic approaches to interpretations of Jesus.” Conservatives are not seen as “fundamentalists or evangelicals but simply secular historians who arrive at traditional results. And by traditional results . . . portraits of Jesus that will be immediately recognizable to readers of the New Testament and that emphasize apocalyptic eschatology as central to Jesus’ message” (49). Liberals are those historians that tend to “assign relatively early dates to some literary evidence that is outside of the New Testament, and relatively late dates to much that is within it. That is largely why they [liberals] end up portraying Jesus in unfamiliar ways” (49). E. P. Sanders and John Meier, authors of The Historical Figure of Jesus and A Marginal Jew respectively, are classified as conservative historians while John Dominic Crossan and Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza, authors of The Historical Jesus and In Memory of Her respectively, as liberal scholars. These conservatives and liberals surveyed share a commitment to methodological naturalism, which leads us into our next division.
In part three Martin’s next divide among historians of Jesus is between naturalistic interpretations versus non-naturalistic approaches to interpretations. He sees that it is difficult for historians of Jesus to avoid being methodological naturalists, but feels that does not have to necessarily be the case and sides with those who subscribe to a more expanded approach. He observes Crossan, Sanders, and Meier and their methodological naturalist approach to the history of Jesus followed by an examination of C. Stephen Evans and J. D. G. Dunn as examples of a more expanded approach. On the one hand, while Martin believes methodological naturalism is a possible way for historians to do history, it is overly restrictive. On the other hand, while he sides with those who adhere to a more expanded approach, he believes Evans and Dunn are overly permissive in their approach. He believes that Marcus J. Borg and N. T. Wright cross the lines between historian and theologian providing a option that is not overly restrictive in methodological naturalism and overly permissive in an expanded approach. He explores their work to examine the consequences of a historian crossing the lines between history and theology.
In the final part of The Elusive Messiah, Martin details how Christians might respond to the challenges posed by recent historical Jesus studies. He feels there are three possible responses. First, only faith – the view that Christians should be totally dismissive of even the expert opinions of secular historians. Second, only reason – the view that Christians should be totally submissive to the expert opinions of secular historians. Third, faith seeking understanding – the view that Christians should arrive at some sort of harmonious integration of what they think they know about Jesus by faith and what historians claim to know about Jesus on the basis of evidence. Representatives of the first view are Kierkegaard and the contemporary Timothy Luke Johnson. Rudolf Bultmann and the secular historians represent the second view. John Meier, C. Stephen Evans, Basil Mitchell, and N. T. Wright exemplify the last view of faith seeking understanding.
Much is to be commended in this volume but we must turn to Martin’s contribution he calls faith-history. In faith-history one stands in the middle ground between overly restrictive approaches and overly permissive approaches. It involves three steps: “First, except in certain kinds of circumstances, proceed on the basis of ordinary secular historical methodology, that is, on the basis of methodological naturalism; second, specify which kinds of circumstances are to be considered exceptions; and, third, explain which alternative methodology is going to be followed in these kinds of circumstances” (116). Essentially a faith-historian would explain on theological grounds the ways in which some historical figures are more than human or have more than ordinary powers. This must be done in a way in which non-natural influences in the natural world are the exception and not the rule. A faith-historian could do this by proceeding on the assumption that what happens can be explained naturally, but when it comes to cases in which ones theological belief is intersecting with history, such as the incarnation, the historian would postulate that God had intervened in this specific case. The historian could continue in this manner in making exceptions in naturalistic history by specifying the scope and limits of these “faith-history” events.
While it must be commended that Martin is attempting to make room for non-natural influences it seems to fall short in its adequacy. Martin’s “faith-history” sounds strikingly similar to Karl Barth’s distinction between Historie (i.e., events which are capable of discovery by a neutral historical investigator) and Geschichte (i.e., revelational or supernatural events which can never be identified with Historie as such). Barth’s Geschichte, also known as “salvation-history”, is separate from and hidden from the “objective” historian or the historian who applies methodological naturalism. The great Cambridge historian Herbert Butterfield in his Christianity and History stated about Barth’s separate historical methods, “It would be a dangerous error to imagine that the characteristics of an historical religion would be maintained if the Christ of the theologians were divorced from the Jesus of history.” It would seem that Martin is suggesting too do likewise. This would only draw the lines more distinctly between the overly restrictive approaches and the overly permissive approaches Martin wants to avoid. Essentially, historians would have to choose between two sets of rules or methods in doing history: methodological naturalism (which would exclude any divine agency causation) and supernaturalism (a type that only those endowed by the Holy Spirit could detect or appeal to). But this is what Martin wanted to avoid. This problem is even recognized by Martin. He states, “how are historians of Jesus who take an even more robust view about God’s interventions to proceed in a way that allows them to continue to do history? . . . one could continue, step by step, in the way I have . . . illustrated without necessarily being methodologically irresponsible . . . at some point in such a step-by-step progression, if one kept going, eventually one would have gone too far. Even if one proceeded in small steps, and just kept going, methodological chaos probably would creep back in gradually, in a variety of ways . . .. That theology can undermine secular historical methodology is not controversial. The controversial question is whether theology, if it were allowed to exert its influence on an otherwise secular historical inquiry, would necessarily undermine it. Many, perhaps most, secular historians believe that it would. I have argued that they are wrong” (118). Unfortunately, Martin has not argued successfully. First, one gets a faith-history event that would most likely not be seen as respectable. Secular historians would not take seriously the faith-history events and if they do not why should anyone else. Second, one would get multiple interpretations of history, those from secular historians and those from the faith-history events, which no one could judge between as the historical event. The historical method would fragment into multiple approaches. Why would one stop at deriving a secular approach and a faith-history approach? Why not develop a New Age approach, Buddhist approach, Islamic approach, postmodern approach (one could argue that Martin’s suggestion is a postmodern approach), etc. Third, Martin’s suggestion assumes the legitimacy of methodological naturalism, hence undermining the faith-history he commends. He statement that there is not question that theology can undermine secular historical methodology is testimony to that, even if he believes that it will not necessarily undermine it. Finally, Martin’s suggestion fails just as Barth’s suggestion does. Barth’s Geschichte or salvation-history of the death and resurrection of Christ fails to provide a remedy for objective reality or Historie. In what way does faith-history provide meaningful redemption for the human condition that is found in objective history?
Why such a commitment to secular historical method or methodological naturalism? As Stephen Davis puts it in Risen Indeed, “it seems quite unpromising for any who believe in the biblical accounts of the resurrection of Jesus to allow secular historians to decide whether or not these accounts depict something that happened in history.” But how could one ever show that event in history had a divine cause? The historian can propose supernatural explanations to an event only when he fails to provide natural explanations to this event. Determining what is the best explanation should follow the advice of C. Behan McCullagh in his work entitled Justifying Historical Descriptions. If an explanation has greater explanatory scope and power, is more plausible, less ad hoc, and disconfirmed by fewer accepted beliefs than any rival explanation, then, this explanation is likely to be true.
While Raymond Martin’s suggestion of faith-history falls short in it performance, it does open up the question of the dominance of methodological naturalism in historical studies in general and historical Jesus studies in particular. The Elusive Messiah provides a clear description of contemporary Jesus studies as well as opening up the debate on historical method in that field.