Yesterday's
post included a rehearsal of that old chestnut: "the Christ of faith" vs. "the so-called historical Jesus." Part of the post(or hyper-)modern intellectual reassessment of previous theories is the problematization of simple dichotomies. Dale Allison plays a bit with the dichotomy in question with the title of his book
The Historical Christ and the Theological Jesus. I'll admit that I disliked this title the first time I saw it. After all, don't we need to keep history distinct from theological concerns? But it is now clear to me - at a different stage in my life - that
this is impossible. As Joseph puts succinctly:
The historical Jesus was a theologically-interested and invested human being. The Jesus tradition was created by theologically-interested and invested authors. Consequently, using theological language and vocabulary in order to understand the origin and development of this historical figure and tradition is virtually unavoidable. It is the interplay of social, economic, political, and theological forces that converge to create and sustain religious movements. The sociological structures of the Jesus movement, the economic pressures on rural Galilee, the political landscape(s) of the Herodian era, and the ideological and theological streams of thought and practice all shaped the lives of first-century Jews. History, in other words, is not simply a record or description of past events, but analytical explanations of the causal forces that generate events. So if our texts represent more than just the ideological thought-world(s) of the texts themselves, and we really want to understand them, then we need to understand and explain the historically enacted theologies of these particular ancient people.
He continues, "The Jesus tradition contains multiple historical theologies about Jesus." Let's reiterate that all historical reconstructions are plural. There is no such thing as the "historian's Jesus"; there are Jesuses of many and varied historical reconstructions. Of course, we try (or ought to) make sense among ourselves and thus attempt to create a coherent collection of narratives. Moreover, some of these narratives will prove better than others and eclipse others in our collective dialectics. Is this all that different than the theological process of creating doctrinal insiders and heterodox/heretical outsiders? Isn't a similar power dynamic at work in both dialectics?
The assumption that there is only one Jesus of history and only one Christ of Faith is ripe for reconsideration. Finally, if we decide that the numerous biblical portraits of Jesus and the numerous creedal portraits, alongside the numerous historical reconstructions form an ongoing conversation, shouldn't we also acknowledge that many of these Jesuses and Christs overlap on any number of levels?
-anthony
Professor LeDonne,
ReplyDeleteThis phrase, "we also acknowledge that many of these Jesuses and Christs overlap on any number of levels?" It seems to me that this is where some level of objectivity comes into play? My concern is that if each person has their own "Jesus reconstruction," without any agreement, we are left with a vicious cycle of relativism. And the underlying philosophical assumption going on here is, "Jesus is however you perceive him to be," with the final result being everyone lost in historical skepticism.
Timothy, I am all about cycles of relativism. I don't mind talking about objectivity as long as we're talking about, as you say, "some level of objectivity." To my ears, this is another way of saying, "An agreeable level of relativism."
Delete-anthony
The empirical recognition that everyone constructs their own understanding of Jesus does not necessitate the view (either as supposition or consequence) that Jesus is however one perceives him. The reason that it does not is that a plurality of accounts is not the same as a plurality of objects. One can have multiple accounts of a singular object. Those accounts will be relative to each other and to that object, such that we speak about a relativity in the plurality, and yet the object would remain singular. What this means is that our *understanding of* Jesus is however we perceive (or more properly, construct) it to be, but not that Jesus, the man who lived and breathed and died two millennia ago, conforms to our perception.
DeleteNeither, by the way, does the above lead to historical skepticism. That would be the case if and only if we lacked the analytical capacity to adjudicate between constructions. We do not lack thus. Historiography is an empirico-rational procedure, and that allows us to test various constructions (let us now call them hypotheses) against the extant data and the canons of reason. To the extent that they render a rational account of the data they can be accepted as true, whilst to the extent that they do not they cannot. Objectivity in this understanding will then emerge simply as the subjective state in which one prefers the results of that empirico-rational inquiry over what one would like to be the results, no more and no less.
Now, of course, one might object that this is harder to accomplish in practice than in theory, and that might well be the case: doing is often more difficult than doing. Life is messy, and the task of philosophical definition is to bring some clarity to the mess and, in the case of historiography, point us in the right direction. That direction will surely not lie in a confusion between the accounts of an object (which cannot fail to be plural the moment that two or more persons render an account) and that object itself (which, if the object is singular, cannot fail to thus be singular).
Jonathan, it's impressive to see critical realism summarized in three paragraphs! You and I are doomed to play our parts in this drama: you emphasizing the objects of the past; me emphasizing the perceptions.
DeleteEven if we could rewind the clock and measure the "singular" object, we'd find a network of relationships within and extending from the integrity of the object. Each of these connections would represent a range of possible meanings. No doubt, we'd want to map these meanings in order to arrive at some coherent narrative that explains (as best we could) the world of the object.
In the case of a historical figure, we're triangulating a matrix of memories with emphasis on a single sphere of mnemonic possibility. This is why, when I'm challenged by realists, I say that the "event" to which the memories refer is not devoid of memory. Behind the commemorations is a "memory event" that includes a matrix of possible meanings. The memory categories (including several ranges of possible interpretations) exist before any new perceptions of the figure and are at work within the memory event from the start. We are always dealing in plurality because (perception of) objects always exist in a world of memory. Take away the memory and the "stuff" of the past ceases to have any significance and therefore ceases to be an event. The good news is that we are never able to rewind the clock. So historians are never able to get behind the memories. This might seem like a problem to historical positivists. But if every historical figure exists only and ever with memory from the start, the Wirkungsgeschichte becomes the "stuff" of our analysis.
-anthony
So in short, science is ridiculous and cannot work?
DeleteAnonymous, can I recommend a better starting point for your question?
Deletehttp://plato.stanford.edu/entries/science-theory-observation/
In this post, I'm focused specifically on historiography.
-anthony
I'm curious if you and/or other Jesus historians apply this same epistemological method/approach to other disciplines such as literature, math, or biology, or even your own personal memories, say, of your 6th grade history teacher? The past is the past, so memories of the past would include 2,000 years ago, last year's World Series winner, yesterday's newspaper or this morning's breakfast. If only memories of Jesus and/or the Jesus tradition are subject to this form of epistemology, and not other types of experience and disciplines, then it seems there is some form of bias or prejudice going on against objective knowledge of the historical Jesus. I'm not arguing for historical positivism, and critical realism does seem quite effective for historical reconstruction. I prefer the term "Historical realism," acknowledging an objective reality existing in the past(yesterday or 2,000 years ago), an external referent independent of consciousness, while affirming the cognitive lens(subject) which perceives (even with fallible memories) the objective reality with greater or lesser accuracy.
DeleteWith regard to literary texts, philosopher William Lane Craig makes an interesting comment,
"Nobody is a postmodernist when it comes to reading the labels on a bottle of aspirin and a box of rat poison. If you’ve got a headache, you better believe that texts have objective meaning!"
Craig also on the Jesus tradition:
"Dunn recognizes that although the historical Jesus is always identified as a construction of historical research, in practice the phrase is used to refer to Jesus himself. It seems to me that this slide is inevitable and unremarkable for any historian who is not a narrative non-realist. For his part Dunn distinguishes between Jesus himself and Jesus remembered—as though accurate memories of Jesus would not be memories of Jesus himself! Although Dunn asserts that the only reasonable objective for a quest of the historical Jesus is Jesus remembered, he inconsistently goes on to argue that from the impact Jesus made on the traditions about him, we can, in fact, discern something of the person who made that impact. This leads Dunn to the bizarre conclusion that "the Jesus tradition is Jesus remembered. And the Jesus thus remembered is Jesus . . ." (p. 335), from which it follows that Jesus himself is a tradition!"
My 6th grade history teacher? That's getting a little personal, Tim.
DeleteThe short answer to your question is that I apply my epistemology as consistently as I can. And I hope that my experience of reality overlaps enough with rat poison manufacturers so that we're intelligible to one another. But if you'd like to know how I apply my epistemology to family memories, politics, baseball, marriage, parenthood, tickling, Jesus etc. I wrote this book just for you: Historical Jesus: What can we know and how can we know it?
http://www.amazon.com/Historical-Jesus-What-Can-Know/dp/0802865267
-anthony
Thank you Professor Le Donne! :)
Delete"tickling, Jesus" -- if ever a comma was important. :)
Delete: ()
ReplyDeletePartly true. But I feel you put the emPHASIS, on the wrong sylLABLE.
Even this piece could be read not as arguing not just that a subjective theology always informs or deforms our thoughts. But rather, we should learn to recognize the theologies at work. And describe them explicitly and objectively. As a way of getting past them.
Anonymous,
DeleteObjectivity can function as an imaginary goal. Not a mode of research. We do well to attempt to be "more objective" even if this just means "as honest and thorough as possible."
-anthony
That's pretty good. But I'd always in fairness add a little nod to the perspective of science, specifically. As unusual as that is in the humanities and the "deities."
DeleteThis is the "historical Jesus"!
ReplyDeletehttp://restlesspilgrim.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/MrPotatoHead.jpg
Now, lets all keep re-membering him.
Pax!
Great name btw....
DeleteMost historians agree that science - archaeology and so forth - is important. To be sure, the philosophy of science acknowledged problems in itself; in "observation" and" protocol" sentences, say.
ReplyDeleteHere we might allow the point that perceptions are often problematic. Without giving up on science, however.
A friend sent this my way today apparently from John Webster: "The only historical Jesus there is is the one who has his being in union with the Son of God who is eternally begotten of the Father. Those who pore over the gospels searching for another Jesus (whether their motives be apologetic or critical) pierce their hearts with many pangs, for they study a matter which does not exist."
ReplyDelete