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On New Testament Scholarship and the Integrity of Faith
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2024
Extract
Hermes and Athena consists of the proceedings of a conference of philosophers and New Testament scholars. I think the sponsors of the conference are to be congratulated on bringing members of the two groups together; the interaction was salutary, for all that one of the most significant exchanges is very angry, and makes painful reading. The issues raised appear to me to be of quite fundamental importance.
As Michael Dummett sees it, the most influential New Testament scholars of the present day operate with two axioms, that the Gospels are not a reliable witness to Jesus’ words and deeds, and that Jesus had no powers and no source of knowledge that were not available to other human beings. In so doing, they not only offend and bewilder ordinary believers, but effectively deprive Christianity of any rational basis. However, there is good reason to disbelieve what these scholars seem to take for granted, that the central doctrines of Christianity were derived not from what was taught by Jesus himself, but from later reflection on his life. For this to have been the case, the disciples must have been either deliberate deceivers or mentally unhinged, and their subsequent behaviour is not consistent with either hypothesis. Another mistake that these scholars make is to assume that one should prescind from faith in trying to determine what is or is not likely to be historically true in the Gospel narratives; in general, probability cannot be assigned to alleged events without reference to background beliefs.
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- Copyright © 1995 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers
References
1 Edited by Thomas P. Elint and Eleonore Stump. University of Notre Dame Press, 1993. References not otherwise assigned will be to this book.
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36 I tried to show this in Sense, Nonsense and Christianity (London: Sheed and Ward, 1964), 250–270Google Scholar.
37 The label is a rather unfortunate one, since, in the present climate of critical opinion, a defense of the basic historicity of the Gospels may well seem a more ‘radical’ option than its alternative. But it will have to do for want of a better.
38 16. I believe that Dummett underestimates the prevalence of the convention of pseudonymity in the ancient world, and its relevance to the study of the documents of the New Testament (16–17); John Collins was right to point this out (28).
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44 Cf. Raymond Brown's witty remark, that authors who maintain that John is not to be taken seriously as a historical witness ‘represent an uncritical traditionalism which arises with age, even in heterodoxy.’ (New Testament Essays, Milwaukee 1965,143).
45 Cf. Dodd, , Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge 1963)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stauffer, , Jesus and His Story (New York 1960)Google Scholar; Morris, , Studies in the Fourth Gospel (Grand Rapids, 1969)Google Scholar; Robinson, , The Priority of John. (London 1985)Google Scholar. Dodd in particular argues in meticulous detail that many of the sayings attributed to Jesus by John derive from very early strata of the tradition, and that these often expound or presuppose specifically Johannine doctrines (Historical Tradition, 115, 321, 419–20, 428). Collins will have it that the ordinary reader of the Gospels can ‘see’ that the Johannine discourses are unlikely to derive from Jesus, because they are so unlike the Synoptic sayings (27). I find it a little curious that he attributes to the ordinary reader authority greater than Dodd's. Also, I am surprised that he thinks that the fact that the term ‘son of God’ is used in so many ways in Scripture has any bearing on Dummett's argument, since it is clear, as Collins himself admits, that the expression is meant in a special sense when applied by the New Testament authors to Jesus (loc. cit.).
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