The historicity of Jesus : a criticism of the contention that Jesus never lived, a statement of the evidence for his existence, an estimate of his relation to Christianity by Case Shirley Jackson 1872-1947

Author:Case, Shirley Jackson, 1872-1947
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Jesus Christ
Publisher: Chicago : University of Chicago Press
Published: 1911-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Indeed it is very probable that interpreters in the early period would be compelled to adhere rather closely to history, in so far as they dealt with items which had come under the observation of their contemporaries. Only as time removed the actual occurrences into the shadows of the past could freely idealizing tendencies be brought into play. But it does not follow that Christians themselves would be deterred by this fact from taking a reverential attitude toward the risen Lord. They were not making the earthly Jesus the object of their worship; this they were rendering to the heavenly Christ, who had become what he was through the direct agency of God. Furthermore, the early believers found the ground for their own faith in personal experience rather than in historical data. It may be psychologically necessary to presuppose for them a high estimate of the earthly Jesus as a basis for the resurrection faith, but it is not absolutely essential for this estimate that they should previously have been conscious of Jesus' deity, nor does primitive tradition suggest that they were. The failure of the disciples to perceive in Jesus' personality while he was with them on earth the significance which they later attached to it is quite generally recognized in the earliest parts of the gospels. In the first stage of the post-resurrection faith reverence was justified mainly by God's attestations of Jesus, and not until later reflection had done its work did believers come to appreciate that Jesus during his earthly career had really displayed qualities which made him worthy of the later faith. Then the disciples understood that they had been slow to comprehend his significance—a fact which they candidly admitted.

It follows therefore that they had a distinct recollection of an earthly individual with whom they had associated, yet without placing upon him at that time the particular form of interpretation which was later evolved under the inspiration of belief in his resurrection. We are not to infer that this individual had not strongly impressed himself upon the memory of the disciples, and that he was not held in high esteem by his associates, though this esteem may not have been fundamentally doctrinaire in type. Of course the earthly Jesus' personality may well have prompted some "doctrinal" reflections among his followers in those days of vivid messianic expectations, and the subject may have been discussed by Jesus himself, but any conclusions to which such reflections may have led seem to have been pretty generally shattered by Jesus' death. That which remained with the disciples was the recollection of his words and the memory of his individuality, and these ultimately proved sufficiently substantial to support the superstructure of the resurrection faith and the doctrine of the heavenly Messiah.

While gospel tradition, arising under these circumstances, might seem to be primarily a history of early Christian doctrine, there were forces working both within and without the community compelling interpreters to adjust their thinking to the actual Jesus of history.

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