From John_Dominic_Crossan@info.harpercollins.comSun Mar 31 15:05:55 1996 Date: Sun, 31 Mar 1996 16:16:45 -0500 From: John Dominic Crossan To: JESUS2000@info.harpercollins.com Subject: Week 7: Final Message (Crossqn) Dear Luke and Marcus: This final message is primarily in reply to your last communication, Luke. I begin with an analogy that helps me locate the distinctions and connections between statements of fact and statements of faith, between history and theology, between "Jesus is human," which can be said by anyone, and "Jesus is divine," which can be said only by Christians. For Christians the New Testament is the Word of God made text just as Jesus is the Word of God made flesh. Text and flesh partake alike, but each after its own manner, in the vagaries and vicissitudes of human existence. Our inspired texts, for example, come to us through tattered papyri and torn parchments, through the dryness of Egyptian sands below the delta, and through the work of historians who create from all the evidence their most plausible reconstruction of the original documents. Those textual historians even grade their decisions with four degrees of certainty (A,B,C,D) just like the Jesus Seminar does (Red, Pink, Gray, Black). But those textual decisions must be made on pure historical grounds without any prior intrusion from faith or theology. It is, of course, faith and theology that make those texts of interest to all Christians. But, if the greatest papyrologists were non-Christian, their views would be just as important as those of any Christian scholars. And if, tomorrow, we find a full scroll of Mark's gospel somewhere in Egypt, it is the papyrological historians who will have to speak first of all. We might, in fact, have to call in the scientists whose current carbon-dating techniques are good to ±25 years. In that case, Luke, we would have to depend on "carburetor" experts to help us. But my point is that faith and theology cannot cheat in that situation and declare, for example, that we already have our Mark and that, no matter what papyrological consensus says, this new Mark can be but a later copy of the canonical one. I see, in other words, a distinction between historical decision and theological conclusion, between what, first, the textual experts can tell us about the manuscript and what, next, the theological experts can tell us about its meaning. I think, above all, that it is an ethical necessity not to confuse those two modes of discourse. It is necessary not to let history masquerade as faith nor faith masquerade as history. (Here come the Magdalen fragments!). I find that interaction of history and faith in the case of a Christian New Testament papyrus helpful in understanding the interaction I have been proposing between historical Jesus research and Christian faith. I mentioned my frustration with our debate in my last message. It was not, however, because you and I disagree, Luke. Disagreement never frustrates me. What frustrates me is my inability to see what exactly you are saying. You say sentence after sentence that I agree with and you must know by now that I do agree with you. In terms of history, you say: "What matters is good historical method." Or, you say: "by 'historical Jesus' I have consistently meant 'the Jesus capable of being reconstructed by means of critical historical inquiry.'" In terms of faith, you define "christian faith" as "the faith of the church in the real Jesus who is raised from the dead and lives with the life of God as Lord, and who through the Holy Spirit continues to encounter humans." I agree with you on all those summary statements, with the former ones as a historian and with the latter one as a Christian. How, then, do I agree with you and yet you disagree with me? I think your last message points me towards a possible answer. You said (I have added numbers) : "if the question is put: (1) 'Was Jesus truly and fully human, (2) and did he, as the Gospels attest, preach the Kingdom of God (3) and heal (4) and give his life in obedience, (5) and is this human Jesus continuous with the one Christians proclaim as risen Lord, (6) and are the canonical Gospels true and reliable witnesses to the meaning of his earthly life and its significance for other humans,' then my answer is emphatically, yes." First, I agree with all six affirmations. Second, I consider that the first four are statements of fact, the last two are statements of faith. Obviously, of course, people might argue about any of those first four but at least they are subject to open debate and public discourse in a way that the last ones can never be. Third, it is certainly possible for a Christian to state that full six-fold declaration and not bother about such distinctions but it is, in my view, ethically imperative to emphasize them as Christianity faces other religions (especially Judaism) externally and religiously imperative to emphasize them as Christians face sectarian proliferation internally. As I see it, Luke, the difference between us is that I insist on the necessity of making those distinctions and you insist on the necessity of not making them. That is why I regularly end up agreeing with your summary statements but you will never agree with mine because I insist on distinguishing between history (public reconstruction) and faith (communal belief). One other point. Your last message's closing remark was: "In all of this, I resist the reduction of the mystery within which we live and for the sake of which we live, to a problem that can be solved like a broken carburetor." You had said earlier: "As a theologian, I place myself squarely within the creed that is recited by my community at every Sunday Eucharist." I believe with you that the mystery which surrounds and supports us, which births and buries us, must not be REDUCED TO anything less than itself. It should not be reduced to a carburetor. Neither should it be reduced to a community. It should not be reduced to the Christian Creed, to the Christian Eucharist, to the Christian religion, or even to the Christian God. But, for Christians, the mystery of the Holy can be fully and totally DISCOVERED IN any of those realities and not be thereby reduced to them. Particularity is not relativity. Incarnation is not reduction. (More aphorisms, just to keep Marcus unhappy). In conclusion and farewell, a blessed Easter, Luke and Marcus, to you both. Let me finish with a question that came to me as I was writing this response. Easter Sunday proclaims the Risen Jesus. Those celebrations are from faith. But that Risen Jesus carries forever the wounds of imperial crucifixion. Those scars are from history. What would we think if somebody had a vision of Jesus and there were no wounds?