The real Jesus : the misguided quest for the historical Jesus and the truth of the traditional Gospels

In “The Real Jesus” Johnson critiques the “Jesus Seminar,” describing them as a group of scholars who used a biased process in a social mission against traditional Christianity, and who were selected on the basis of agreement with certain goals and methods (2-6). Johnson also critiques numerous books on Jesus beginning with what Johnson views as less responsible to those that are more substantial. For example, under the less responsible category Johnson cites “Jesus and the Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls” by Barbara Thiering (1992). According to Thiering, Jesus was the Wicked Priest of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Jesus was crucified, given a poison to make him look dead, and buried in a cave at Qumran. Simon Magus was also crucified but survived, crawled through a tunnel from a connected tomb and gave Jesus something to enable him to purge the poison and recover. Johnson evaluated Thiering’s work as nonsense which defied all canons of serious historical research (Johnson 1996, 29-30).A couple other books in Johnson’s "less responsible" category were “Born of a Woman” and “Resurrection: Myth or Reality” in which Episcopalian Bishop John Spong charged that the Gospel writers covered up what really happened in the story of Jesus. According to Spong, Mary was actually raped and bore an illegitimate child, Jesus, who grew up and married the prostitute Mary Magdalene at Cana. Johnson characterized Spong’s argumentation as specious, and his conclusion as banal (33-34).Marcus Borg was critiqued under Johnson’s more substantial category. According to Borg, Jesus was a charismatic Jew, a healer, sage, prophet and founder of a renewal movement within Judaism—all views with which Johnson agreed. But Johnson noted how little actual history was in Borg’s work and charged Borg with asserting much and demonstrating little. According to Johnson, Borg was an example of how Jesus was being forced into the mold compatible with assumptions of contemporary American academy (42-43).Another more substantial author was John Dominic Crossan. Crossan adhered to consistent methodological procedures more than other authors (45). Crossan’s insistence that all traditions about Jesus be treated equally appeared fair at first glance, but closer examination showed that the evidence was fixed. The fact that Crossan asserted an amazingly early date for extra-canonical materials, and late dates for canonical materials without even discussing the views of scholars who disagreed, showed that Crossan’s position was assumed, not demonstrated. Johnson commented that motives other than doing serious history were at work (47-48). Johnson concluded that these works and others were unduly skeptical about the gospels as reliable sources, ignored the evidence of Paul, and had a theological agenda in denying traditional Christianity. Johnson then went on to discuss the Jesus of history from his own perspective. After analyzing the problems and limitations of doing history, Johnson applied the problems of history in general to the problems of studying Jesus historically. While Johnson points out that the gospel writers disagree dramatically in their stories of Jesus, Johnson also noted the substantial agreement in the gospel stories and concludes that there is good reason to believe that the agreements were in some fixed form at an early date. Johnson’s historical method was, therefore, to find converging lines of evidence based on the assumption that when several witnesses disagree on a wide range of issues, their agreements increased the probability that what they agreed on actually happened (107, 110-112). After critically analyzing the evidence from Josephus, the Talmud, Suetonius, Tacitus, and Lucian of Samosata, Johnson examined the evidence from Paul and other New Testament writers—excluding Gospels at first—and concluded that the lines of convergence point to Jesus as being a descendent of David and a Jewish teacher who interpreted his last meal with reference to his death, stood trial before Pilate and was crucified in a way that somehow involved the Jewish leadership in his death. Jesus was buried and appeared to witnesses after his death. Johnson pointed out that while the lines of convergence did not prove historical accuracy, they did, nevertheless, show that such memories of Jesus were fairly widely circulated and were less likely to be a product of the Gospel writers’ invention (121-122). Finally, Johnson discusses the Gospels. He includes a favorable evaluation of the work of John Meier who rigorously applied historical criteria to the task of minutely analyzing the Gospel narratives in order to determine the minimum of what can be known historical about Jesus (127-133). Johnson concludes with some observations on faith. For Johnson, faith was apparently not simply a blind leap into the abyss, neither was it based on a historical reconstruction of Jesus. Johnson argued, rather that in the New Testament, there emerges a pattern or character of Jesus’ life and death as one of “…radical obedience to God and selfless love toward other people…” (158).