Facticity and Revelation in Grappling with the Relationship Between the Jesus of History and the Christ of Faith

A discussion post from a seminar on the historical Jesus at Bethel Seminary in 2020

No escape into pure facticity is possible among human actors seeking to address the actions, motivations, and influences of and on the historical Jesus—which itself, is a literary artifact. While also invariably worldview-shaped, a judicious use of evidence, critical reasoning, and analysis of existing perspectives can help establish a more discerning understanding of the historical Jesus. Those whose primary theory of knowledge is heavily shaped by materialist presuppositions will discount any literal interpretation of miracles attributed to Jesus in the gospels, including resurrection sightings, regardless as to how extensive the evidence may be according to the literary and historical resources.  Those who hold an inerrant view of Scripture will tend to accept the authenticity of the miracle stories and the resurrection narratives even though they may seem to contradict commonly accepted views of science and are contrary to the standards of analogical comparability—that of interpreting what was plausible in ancient history to that which is similarly so in the contemporary era. So, if miracles don’t occur in our times, they could not have occurred in biblical times (See Dawes, 28, on Troelsch). 

A third school of thought points to fundamental differences between what we can know though historical research and what comes to us through the revelation of the Christ of faith (Kasemann).  Some in this camp accept the general validity of the critical scholarship on the historical Jesus for what it discloses—something of the historical personage and his times—while making the primary point that what is of ultimate significance is the revelation of Christ, which can only be perceived through the revealed Word of God.  Between these two sources of knowledge—both highly partial in their own ways—there is an ineradicable gap which cannot be easily crossed.  Stated in other terms, the finite cannot contain the infinite in mediating the gap between history and faith.

Others (Bultman) maintain that the gap is not so much a purely philosophical one, but has to do with the radical difference in the historical times between that of the Palestinian world view of the first century and the modern world view of the 20^th and 21^st centuries.  According to Bultmann, what is of ultimate significance is the relevance of Christ’s universal message (the kerygma) in addressing the existential needs of people in the modern era.  While there may be much in the teaching of Jesus that speaks to these matters, there is also much that does not.  Nor does the constructed “three-story” world of the 1^st century (heaven, earth, hell) or its apocalyptic imagery make sense in light of current cosmological interpretations based on contemporary physics, biology, history, anthropology, and sociology.

I gravitate toward the third school, with the caveat that there is a good deal that can be known about the historical Jesus that additional research will likely further illuminate.  Nonetheless, given the ultimate grounding of revealed faith, I’m not so sure that “history,” as an academically disciplined body of study, has the capacity to disclose anything of absolute significance at that level.  Still, early Christianity, as a religious movement self-consciously rooted in historical claims, a great deal of knowledge may well be opened up about the life of the founder that can be highly useful as a resource for our understanding of history and for our faith.