The Cradle, the Cross, and the Crown (35 page)

The point of this discussion is that the dismissal of the historical reliability of the Gospels by many contemporary scholars is not generally based on historical evidence that disputes the testimony of Gospel accounts. Rather, this dismissal is grounded in the scholars' philosophical presuppositions, presuppositions that most Americans rightly reject because they fail to explain personal experiences and perceptions of reality. When one overcomes philosophical prejudices against accounts that describe supernatural events such as incarnation, virgin birth, exorcism, miracle, and resurrection, one discovers that the evidence for the historical reliability of the Gospels is rather compelling.

The Criteria of Authenticity

Some scholars reject the historical reliability of the Gospels because they have attempted to use objective means to test whether particular sayings or events recorded in the Gospels can be traced back to Jesus. Many scholars believe that the only material that can be deemed reliable in the Gospels is material that satisfies particular criteria, which are called the “criteria of authenticity.” These criteria were developed and refined by form and redaction critics of the early and mid-twentieth century. Although one scholar has compiled a list of 25 such criteria that have been applied in recent historical Jesus research,
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this section treats only the four most widely recognized criteria: (1) multiple attestation or forms; (2) Palestinian environment or language; (3) dissimilarity; and (4) coherence.

The Criterion of Multiple Attestation or Forms
The criterion of multiple independent attestation suggests that material about Jesus is probably authentic if it appears in two or more ancient sources which did not rely on each other. F. C. Burkitt first suggested that locating material that appeared in both Mark and Q was “the nearest approach that we can hope to get to the common tradition of the earliest Christian society about our Lord's
words.”
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Later scholars expanded the criterion to include not only material in Mark and Q but also material in M (material unique to Matthew), L (material unique to Luke), John, other NT writings, and extrabiblical sources such as the Gospel of Thomas. Jesus' teaching on divorce, for example, is attested by three independent sources: Mark 10:2–12 (Matt 19:3–12); Q (Matt 5:32/Luke 16:18); and Paul (1 Cor 7:10–11) and thus should be regarded as authentic according to this criterion.

C. H. Dodd argued that material that appeared in multiple forms was also probably early and possibly authentic.
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The various forms had been defined by form critics who sought to trace the history of the oral traditions behind the Gospels. The designated forms included aphorisms, parables, dialogues, and miracle stories. For example, since Jesus proclaimed that the kingdom of God had arrived in multiple forms including an aphorism (Matt 5:17), parables (Matt 9:37–38; Mark 4:26–29), poetic sayings (Matt 13:16–17), and dialogues (Matt 12:24–28), the insistence that the kingdom of God had arrived was likely an authentic theme of Jesus' teaching.

S. Porter has pointed out several problems related to applying this criterion.
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Most importantly, the criterion is able to establish general themes of the teaching of Jesus but does not usually enable scholars to reconstruct Jesus' actual words. Moreover, the appeal to multiple independent sources is now complicated by recent rejection of the once widely held solution to the Synoptic problem.
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Most importantly, while the criterion of multiple attestation may enable the researcher to confirm the authenticity of Gospels material on the positive side, conversely, it is inadequate to rule out from consideration material that is attested in only one source since there is no good reason for someone to reject material as authentic merely because, for example, a given feat of Jesus is recorded only once. This points to an egregious limitation in the use of this criterion.

The Criterion of Palestinian Environment or Language
From the seventeenth century until modern times, the criterion of Palestinian environment or language has served as an index for evaluating material associated with Jesus. This criterion suggests that a section of material in the Gospels is probably authentic if it appears to be a fairly literal translation of a Semitic (Hebrew or Aramaic) original into Greek. The rationale behind this criterion is the observation that Greek quickly became the predominant language of the church. Material created by the church would have been originally composed in Greek and would not possess Semitic characteristics. Therefore, material that preserves Semitic vocabulary, grammar, or style is very early and likely to be authentic.

An example of Palestinian language appears in Matt 5:13. Although most modern translations refer to salt “losing its taste,” the verb translated in this fashion
(mōranthē)
does not mean “to lose taste” anywhere else in all of ancient literature. The verb normally means “to become foolish, lose one's mind, or be mentally incapacitated,” a meaning that does not quite make sense in this context. The puzzling use of the Greek verb here is likely a by-product of the Greek translation of an original Aramaic saying. In Hebrew and Aramaic, the root
tpl
can mean either “be foolish” (Job 1:22; 24:12; Jer 23:13) or “be saltless, dull, insipid” (Job 6:6). The evidence of an Aramaic original here suggests both the antiquity and authenticity of the saying.
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The criterion of Palestinian environment suggests that material is probably early and possibly authentic if it refers to customs, geographical features, or beliefs characteristic of first-century Palestine. The probability of the antiquity and authenticity of the material increases if the knowledge of the Palestinian environment exhibited in the account would have been possessed only by someone with a personal acquaintance with that environment. For example, the very specific description of the five colonnades of the pool of Bethesda near the Sheep Gate in John 5:2 has been confirmed through archaeological excavations.
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The description strongly suggests that the author of John's Gospel was personally familiar with the city of Jerusalem before the fall of the city in the year 70 and who thus had access to authentic traditions about Jesus or was an eyewitness of Jesus' ministry himself.

As in the case of the criterion of multiple attestation, the present criterion of Palestinian environment or language may serve positively as an indication of the authenticity of material included in the Gospels. At the same time, caution should be exercised not to disqualify material whose authenticity cannot be established by the use of this criterion since other criteria may affirm its authenticity. Moreover, the intrinsic limitations of any criterion of authenticity of Gospels material should be kept in mind as well.

The Criterion of Dissimilarity
The criterion of dissimilarity suggests that material in the Gospels is authentic if the sayings or deeds of Jesus recorded in the account are dissimilar to those expected from the Judaism of his day or from the practices and theology of the early church. This criterion was first formulated by W. Heitmüller and P. W. Schmiedel. It was popularized by R. Bultmann who wrote, “We can only count on possessing a genuine similitude of Jesus where, on the one hand, expression is given to the contrast between Jewish morality and piety and the distinctive eschatological temper which characterized the preaching of Jesus; and where on the other hand we find no specifically Christian features.”
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The intent of the criterion is to rule out material that may have originated in Jewish circles or may have been invented by early Christians. Application of the criterion
establishes the authenticity of material such as Matt 8:22 according to which Jesus said, “Let the dead bury their dead.” Such a saying was unlikely to have originated from Jewish traditions or the teaching of the Christian community.
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Unfortunately, this criterion has often been misapplied. Not only is material that satisfies the criterion accepted as authentic, material that does not satisfy the criterion is sometimes rejected as inauthentic. This misapplication of the criterion results in the absurd portrait of a first-century Jew who in no way reflects his Jewish background and a teacher whose teachings were completely abandoned by the church that he founded. For this reason, many current scholars rarely apply this criterion, and some have called for the abandonment of the criterion altogether.
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G. Theissen and D. Winter recently urged that the criterion be replaced by a criterion of historical plausibility. This criterion has four elements:

1. Contextual appropriateness: “What Jesus intended and said must be compatible with the Judaism of the first half of the first century in Galilee.”
   
2. Contextual distinctiveness: “What Jesus intended and did must be recognizable as that of an individual figure within the framework of the Judaism of that time.”
   
3. Source coherence: “The coherence of enduring features that persisted despite the variety of tendencies at work within pluralistic early Christianity.”
   
4. Resistance to tendencies of the tradition: “Those elements within the Jesus tradition that contrast with the interests of the early Christian sources, but are handed on in their tradition, can claim varying degrees of historical plausibility.”
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N. T. Wright has suggested a similar modification of the criterion of dissimilarity. He called his modification “the criterion of double similarity and double dissimilarity.” Wright argued that no historical person differs too radically from his immediate context. One would also expect significant continuity between the founder of a movement and his earliest followers. However, a truly distinctive leader will differ from others in his context in important ways, and his followers may prove incapable of fully imitating him. Thus the historical Jesus should both be similar and dissimilar to other first-century Jews and his earliest disciples.
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Modifications such as these are necessary in order for this criterion to make a positive contribution to Jesus studies.

The Criterion of Coherence
This criterion, also called “criterion of consistency or conformity,” simply stipulates that material is likely early and authentic if it is consistent with material judged to be authentic based on other criteria. As J. P. Meier noted, “The criterion of coherence holds that other sayings and deeds of Jesus that fit in well with the
preliminary ‘data base’ established by using our first three criteria have a good chance of being historical (e.g., sayings concerning the coming of the kingdom of God or disputes with adversaries over legal observance).”
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Used appropriately, the application of this criterion has the potential to enlarge significantly the amount of material deemed to be authentic in the Gospels. At the same time, Meier rightly cautioned that “[o]ne must, however, be wary of using it [the criterion of coherence] negatively, i.e., declaring a saying or action inauthentic because it does not seem to be consistent with words or deeds of Jesus already declared authentic on other grounds.”
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One should not discard the possibility that Jesus uttered statements that set him apart from other religious leaders of his day.

Table 3.4: Historical Jesus Research: Criteria of Authenticity

Evaluation of the Criteria

These criteria can be helpful for demonstrating the historical reliability of the Gospels if they are properly applied. However, at least three problems are associated with these criteria.

First, some scholars do not apply the criteria consistently. Instead, they manipulate them to create a portrait of Jesus that accords with their expectations. The Jesus Seminar, for example, claimed to value the standard criteria of authenticity but casually dismissed much material that is authenticated by the criteria.
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Second, some scholars abuse the criteria by automatically assuming that material not established as authentic by applying the criteria is necessarily inauthentic, an imaginative creation of the early church.

Third, and most importantly, the criteria of authenticity place an unreasonable burden of proof on the Gospel material. Historians generally accept the historical reliability of ancient sources unless there are good reasons for not doing so. In legal parlance, the sources are deemed innocent until proven guilty. However, the criteria of authenticity are often applied as if the NT Gospels are guilty until proven innocent. C. Blomberg noted:

Once one accepts that the Gospels reflect attempts to write reliable history or biography, however theological or stylized its presentation may be, then one must immediately recognize an important presupposition which guides most historians in their work. Unless there is good reason for believing otherwise one will assume that a given detail in the work of a particular historian is factual. This method places the burden of proof squarely on the person who would doubt the reliability of a given portion of the text. The alternative is to presume the text unreliable unless convincing evidence can be brought forward in support of it. While many critical scholars of the Gospels adopt this method, it is wholly unjustified by the normal canons of historiography. Scholars who would consistently implement such a method when studying other ancient historical writing would find the corroborative data so insufficient that the vast majority of accepted history would have to be jettisoned.
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