As is well-known, Professor Hooker wrote two essays (1970, 1972) criticizing the traditional authenticity criteria in Jesus research. Many, many scholars since have lamented the fact that they did not heed her warning earlier in their careers. Dale Allison says as much in his chapter of Jesus, Criteria, and the Demise of Authenticity. You can read Prof. Hooker's foreword here:
Our gratitude to the kind folks at T&T Clark for making this available.
The Jesus Blog has an online interview scheduled with Prof. Hooker in the coming months.
anthony
Thanks for doing this guys. I look forward to reading the book. Hope the conference goes well. Could you try and summarize how social memory theory will open up new avenues for Jesus research for lay-people? Generally speaking, what will it allow scholars to do that the existing Jesus Criteria can't/won't achieve?
ReplyDeleteThanks for your question Greg. There have been a handful of good books written on Social Memory as applied to historical Jesus research. My Historiographical Jesus, Rafael Rodriguez's disseration, this book:
Deletehttp://www.amazon.com/Memory-Tradition-And-Text-Christianity/dp/1589831497
Of course, if you want something that is more accessible (forgive the shameless plug) the chapters I write on memory in my dainty-pinkish book are the only thing out there.
Perhaps I can post a few excerpts of the memory stuff in the coming weeks.
Morna Hooker says that through 'concentrating on the whole' or even mere common sense, we can find out quite a lot about Jesus, and gives examples of things which she sees as "clear" or "beyond question" or "indisputable". This does not sound like the approach of a critical historian. It sounds more like the approach of a liberal believer - someone who believes without question at least certain parts of the testimony of the New Testament.
ReplyDeleteIt may well be true that the traditional criteria of authenticity have been misused far more often than they have been used correctly, and it may be that these criteria need to be redefined, but without a set of criteria, each interpreter will come to his or her own conclusions with regard to authenticity. Thinking people will not accept such conclusions.
Anyone notice the typo in Dr Hooker foreword? She cites 1942 as being eighty years ago...
ReplyDeleteWell, one side effect of growing up in Kentucky is that "most thinking people"--whoever that group may be--have never constrained my ability to think for myself. That being said, neither I nor Dr. Le Donne, nor any of the other contributors to Jesus, Criteria, and the Demise of Authenticity believes that we should not have general "rules of the road" in historiography. Our problem is not with historical methodology but with the specific methodology of criteria of authenticity.
ReplyDeleteTo the more important issue, though--Do you honestly believe that Morna Hooker is not a critical historian?
Having made considerable use of her commentary on Mark's gospel, I respect Morna Hooker as one of the more enlightened NT scholars. Whether she claims to be a critical historian I do not know. All I know is that someone who claims that "concentrating on the whole", or "common sense" allows us to find out quite a lot about Jesus is not *behaving* like a critical historian. I would challenge some of the things she sees as beyond question, but that would take us too far from the topic of authenticity criteria.
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