In discussing how researchers create narratives to portray historical events or write biographies, Benedict Anderson, author of the highly acclaimed Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, drew a contrast with the Gospel of Matthew.
These narratives . . . are set in homogeneous, empty time. Hence their frame is historical and their setting sociological. This is why so many autobiographies begin with the circumstances of parents and grandparents, for which the autobiographer can have only circumstantial, textual evidence; and why the biographer is at pains to record the calendrical, A.D. dates of two biographical events which his or her subject can never remember: birth-day and death-day. Nothing affords a sharper reminder of this narrative’s modernity than the opening of the Gospel according to St. Matthew. For the Evangelist gives us an austere list of thirty males successively begetting one another, from the Patriarch Abraham down to Jesus Christ. . . . No dates are given for any of Jesus’s forebears, let alone sociological, cultural, physiological or political information about them. This narrative style . . . . was entirely reasonable to the sainted genealogist because he did not conceive of Christ as an historical ‘personality,’ but only as the true Son of God. (pp 204f)
Yet how many biblical scholars have attempted to fill in the gap in Matthew’s Gospel by calculating the exact or approximate years of Jesus’ birth and death! Rather, the more enlightening inquiry should be to seek to understand why the first evangelists did not have the historical interests that fascinate modern readers.
(Of course, it would be too easy to fall back on the claim that Pilate’s appearance in the gospel establishes a historical setting and time — until one pauses to recall that the Pilate in the gospels is a character utterly unlike the historical Pilate. As I wrote earlier, the Pilate of historical record (sc. Josephus) was renowned for his cruelty but all the evangelists, Matthew included, present him — most UNhistorically — as benign and soft when he meets Jesus, and as being cowered by the Jewish priests and mob into doing their will against his own. A historical person has been rewritten to meet the needs of the narrative.)
Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Revised Edition. Verso, 2006.
Neil Godfrey
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It always puzzles me, the interest in Jesus’s genealogy. His mother was Mary, and his father was the Holy Ghost. Christian excusigists tie themselves into knots as to how the Holy Ghost created sperm from the line of David to make sure that Jesus was of that line, which makes a mockery of the magical impregnation and birth.
My only thought after reading this was; what was the reliability of Josephus? It is very difficult to know how much bias had entered his writing so long after the events occurred, especially since the Jews were treated rather harshly for a long period of time due to their rebellious actions. Pilate remains a mystery. I don’t think we have any idea as to the origin of Matthew so I choose the words that appeal to me as one who values an inner path. For example, the Essenes and Sadducees did not believe in hell. Only the Pharisees of the larger Jewish sects did. I doubt Jesus was a believer in their particular doctrine and more likely had an aversion. Like Marcion, I think that so much had been rewritten, edited and forged that the true history is unknowable.
Everyone writes with some kind of bias and the biases of Josephus are well known. In certain key respects he wrote with a pro-Roman bias and was certainly biased against those he viewed as rebels against Rome. Wherever he could he would fault Jewish rebels for stubborn resistance despite a willingness of Rome to show some clemency at key junctures. The most famous episode of bias producing a most unlikely scenario was his claim that Titus did not want to destroy the Jerusalem temple but it was burned despite his best efforts to save it. Or perhaps even more famous pro-Roman bias was his claim that Vespasian was the promised world ruler of Jewish prophecy.
The Pilate of the gospels is as much a fairy tale figure compared with his reality — not unlike the way a historical Arthur or Charlemagne have been re-written in various fictional tales.
The only question that matters, ultimately, is whether there was an historical Jesus who was known by contemporaries, and who died by crucifixion, and was later said by some of his contemporaries to have been “raised from the dead”.
Now, we could all agree that the canonical Gospels are NOT offering historical, “biographical” accounts. Maybe they’re theological, heck, maybe they’re fiction (and, they certainly would be, if there was not, at a minimum, a known, historical person named Jesus who was claimed by some of his contemporaries to have been raised from the dead).
So, let’s just say that whatever the Gospels are, they are NOT historically reliable biographical accounts.
That doesn’t mean there wasn’t an historical Jesus (as I’ve described above). It may just mean that decades after the life, death, and purported resurrection of Jesus, somebody decided to write some “historical fiction” books about Jesus.
But, if there WAS an historical Jesus who was known by contemporaries, (some of whom claimed he was raised from the dead), then somebody’s “historical fiction” written 30, 40, or 50 (or more) years later doesn’t change whatever the real “facts” were.
So, the only thing that is accomplished in writing books, articles, and blog posts about how “bogus” the canonical Gospels might be that some become convinced that those writings ARE “bogus”.
But, ultimately, that has nothing to do with whether a historical Jesus was raised from the dead or not. An individual might be convinced on other grounds (besides the canonical Gospels) that there was an historical Jesus (as described) – and, who really WAS raised from the dead. This was, after all, the very case in the first century: Clearly there were those that believed in an historical Jesus who was said, by contemporaries who knew him, to have been ‘literally’, bodily raised from the dead. And, they believed that BEFORE any Gospels were written.
So, I find these sort of writings about the Gospels to be a tedium. They say, over and over again, that the Gospels are (essentially) bogus. Yet, they never address the question of why people BEFORE the Gospels were written believed in an historical Jesus (as described).
It makes me ponder: A “Christianity” built around an historical Jesus that was claimed to have been ‘literally’, physically, bodily raised from the dead could have survived WITHOUT the Gospels at all. But, but, could something like Christ Mythicism survive without the Gospels? I don’t think so.
You misunderstand the purpose of this blog. I am not interested in debunking anyone’s religion or in trying to argue that the Gospels are “bogus” — nor even in trying to argue that Jesus did not exist. None of those issues interest me at all. What does interest me is trying to explore the origins of Christianity and origins of the Gospels. How and why did it/they come about? What are the Gospels and what was their purpose, function, when composed? Those questions are still very much open.
And the immediate stimulation for this post was my reading — by chance — the reference to Matthew’s gospel in a historical work where I least expected to find it. I think many in the general public would like to know how non-biblical historians think of the gospels compared with other sources they normally work with.
As for mythicism, I simply do not see myself as a “mythicist” at all. The question of a historical Jesus simply does not arise in my thinking. There is no plank from which to start to even begin to explore such a question — the many books by biblical scholars notwithstanding.
I take the same view of the gospels as do many, perhaps most, theologians: that the gospels present a non-historical Christ figure. That is the figure that requires explanation wrt the gospels. Similarly for the Christ Jesus figure in the epistles and Revelation.