It seems to me that most scholarly studies that treat the Gospels as sources of historical information about Jesus and the early disciples do not always rely on the Gospel narratives to transmit historical information. Being post-Enlightenment minds (leaving aside the disturbing frequency with which I see anti-Enlightenment sentiments expressed among scholars, and not only biblical ones) we tend to rationalize and “naturalize” the claims of the miraculous.
Just as once Old Testament scholars would look for shallow waters or earthquake activity to explain Moses’ miraculous crossing of the Red Sea, or seek out evidence of Mesopotamian flooding to explain the story of Noah’s ark, so we have studies into psychological and mystical proclivities to explain the resurrection appearances of Jesus Christ. Continue reading “Taking the Gospels Seriously”