The modern quest to reconstruct an historically accurate account of the real life and teachings of Jesus has been going on for several centuries now. New books on this topic continue to be published at a hefty rate. (The 3 “Quests” for the Historical Jesus gives a summary account of three phases in this quest from a blog by Zondervan publishing company.)
Here are my thoughts on this topic.
About history in general: There are questions about historical facts that we would like to be able to answer. But historiography depends on available evidence. And in some cases we must fact the fact that we simply lack reliable historical evidence that would allow us to answer the questions we most want answers. From this point of view i think the honest thing to say is that “the real life of Jesus” is an historical blank (as is the real life of Socrates, Buddha, Laozi, etc.).
Lots of studies have given us more detailed information about conditions and movements in Palestine at the time of Jesus. But so far as the life and teachings of the individual Jesus himself go, the canonical Gospels remain the only possible source. And anyone trying to use these as reliable evidence for the life of this individual faces serious problems.
Jesus probably did exist and had some kind of a following. But he and his community of followers in Palestine most likely spoke Aramaic, not Greek. And we know very little about this community, and no written accounts have survived giving us the first-hand memories of Jesus and his teachings of this group of initial followers.
The Christian movement that survived and had enormous success was a movement that first developed among Greek-speaking people living outside of Palestine. (I think the most likely earliest context was synagogue-communities of Greek-speaking individuals scattered throughout the Mediterranean world, composed both of ethnic Jews and people of other ethnic backgrounds who were attracted to Judaism and the Judaic scriptural tradition. Almost all New Testament accounts present Jesus-centered religion as the true inheritor of the Jewish tradition.)
Members of this movement were not converted by Jesus himself, but by stories about Jesus told them by missionaries. These stories were not composed with the purpose of giving accurate historical accounts. Their purpose was to bring about a fundamental transformation in the lives of a particular audience of individuals to whom the stories were told. Some elements of these stories probably do go back to memories of those who knew Jesus. But I think all scholars agree that many elements in the gospels were made up, added to these memories because they were thought to be effective in bringing about a certain kind of fundamental transformation in people’s lives. In modern terms, the Gospels are best seen as belonging not to the genre of “biography” or “history,” but to the genre of “serious fiction.”
The problem for modern historiography is that we don’t have any reliable means of separating out elements known to belong to the real life and teachings of Jesus. And lack of reliable evidence invites selection based on the views and values of the modern interpreter. For example, writers attracted to a Leftist revolutionary view of things today, favor a narrative of Jesus as a radical revolutionary challenging the power of Rome. Everyone selects and interprets elements of the Gospel stories that fit their interests and values.
What drives the interest in the “real life of Jesus”?
But I would like to ask a more fundamental question: Suppose an historically accurate “true life of Jesus” could be reconstructed on the basis of canons of evidence accepted by modern historiography. What would be its possible significance for us? Why should we be interested? Why should we care about what the real Jesus was like?
One possible supposition that drives interest in the historical Jesus would go like this: If historical research shows that the real story of Jesus is different from the traditional story told by Christian teachers and preachers, this should have a debunking effect. It shows that Christian believers have been wrong to base their lives on the traditional story, if this story has been shown to be historically false.
Possibly in addition one might suppose that those who want to be followers of Jesus today should base their lives on the true Jesus story reconstructed by modern historical methods. E.g. if the real Jesus was a revolutionary rebelling against imperialist roman rule, following Jesus today means being a revolutionary against imperialism in some modern form.
But this raises the question: Most agree today that the Gospel stories contain much material that was made up. This is partly because their primary intention was not to inform people of historical facts. They were composed as a form of preaching, meant to change people’s lives. Living one’s life based on the gospel stories of Jesus’s life should change one’s life for the better, and in some very particular way. This is why I say that, considering the purpose for which they were composed, the Gospels are closer to the modern category of “serious fiction” than of “history writing.”
So the real question is: Should one only base one’s life on historically true stories, never on serious fiction?
