Much like Thomas Jefferson, many people form their own view of Christianity, then seek out a "historical Jesus" who suits their beliefs about him, rather than ascribing to any one denominational identity.
So determined was Jefferson, a closet theologian most noted for writing the Declaration of Independence, to find the Christ he was looking for, that he came up with his own version of the New Testament in which he simply "cut out" the parts that didn't fit his view."He was a rationalist, so did not believe in supernatural intervention in the ordinary world," said Ed Sanders, professor of religion at Duke University. Jefferson exemplifies one of the four types of belief Sanders will examine in the annual Tanner-McMurrin lecture on Tuesday, March 30, at 7:30 p.m. in the Gore Auditorium at Westminster College. His topic: "The Historical Jesus and Christian Theology: The Significance of Historical Research for Christian Belief."
To produce a version of the New Testament to his liking, Jefferson "did it by cutting passages out and pasting them in a book," in four languages simultaneously. The Greek, Latin, French and English versions of his selected New Testament passages were placed in parallel columns, allowing him to see a depth of meaning that one language version alone didn't offer.
While most people aren't willing to literally edit scripture in order to create a biblical text free of passages that contradict their own views, there is a sort of stepsister to that philosophy afoot among a select group of scholars.
The Jesus Seminar, founded in 1985 by a New Testament scholar, meets annually to discuss historical views of Christianity, voting on whether Jesus was ever resurrected (they maintain he wasn't) and on what Jesus himself really said.
While Sanders says he never "prescribes what people should or shouldn't believe -- I'm merely a describer," he does find that all members of the Jesus Seminar have one thing in common: "They deny that Jesus was an eschatological prophet, with -- eschatology being discussion or thought about 'the end.' The conventional wisdom in study of the historical Jesus is that he had proclaimed the arrival of God in the near future. . . . Some scholars have wanted very much to get rid of that by changing the evidence."
To do so, "one arbitrarily says one passage of scripture is early and authentic and that other passages are not." So in passages where Christ speaks as such a prophet, Jesus Seminar scholars simply proclaim such verses were not his teachings.
Sanders offers two possibly motives:
First, because prophetic scriptural verses speaking of God's advent "didn't happen -- and if Jesus thought it would happen, then he made a mistake. There's a good deal of resistance to that idea."
Second, because the view that a Messiah was coming "is regarded as a very Jewish sort of idea . . . I think eschatology makes Jesus 'too Jewish' for the taste of some" who would rather view him as a Greek-style philosopher, "offering wry observations on the difficulties of life and thus help people cope with them." Such rationale exemplifies "the need to get history to line up with one's own theology and some of the problems that are generated if that doesn't happen," Sanders said.
"Whether or not Christianity could be disproved by historical research" is a sub-topic of his presentation. "But my principle interest is simply to show that different historical reconstructions relate to different theological views of Christianity as a whole," he said.
The lecture is free, and the public is invited.