Obviously there is a glut of titles about the historical Jesus, since the title features the rather gratuitous word “figure”, evidently to have a nondescript title that isn’t exactly like any other.
Sanders is a well-informed and talented at popularizing liberal whose liberalism is not so virulent as to have destroyed all common sense (he admits that Luke and Acts are by the same man). He demonstrates no spiritual perception (for instance, finding the temptation for Christ to throw himself off the temple the hardest to explain of the temptations). He destroys much confidence in his observance when he blunders as to so basic a narrative fact as the healing of the man with the palsy (stating that Christ healed him by saying “Son, your sins are forgiven”), and includes egregious nonsense (the “Twelve” was a symbolic number with the actual number of the disciples being more or less and used symbolically �which is true enough, but he fails to observe that the symbolism of a man referring to his sixteen disciples as twelve is symbolic more of being mathematically challenged than eschatologically self-conscious: also the references to the ‘eleven’ after the death of Judas militates somewhat against the symbolic twelve, as well as the election of Matthias to keep up the number). With regard to miracles he accepts that the ancients had a different view than we do, but will insist on drawing the line of credulity where modern medicine would. While in such a work he needn’t examine presuppositions, and while he seems to try to offend conservatives as little as possible, his rationalistic biases emerge, and are even admitted with an approving quotation from Cicero. His acceptance of early dates for the material of the Gospels seems to bring him to a dilemma �they were written while the apostles still lived, but could not be eyewitness accounts! However, he does raise some interesting knots which cannot be untied superficially, as: Mark’s rapid survey of material spread out in Matthew; the differing response on the part of the disciples to the walking on water, inter alia.
Interesting facts and ideas: the Roman presence in Palestine at the time of Christ was not great (no official presence in Galilee and only a small one in Judea, concentrated in Caesarea and careful of provoking the Jews at Jerusalem); pseudo-Matthew took Isaiah 1:3 and on that basis had an ox and an ass adore Christ at His birth; there are no exorcisms or parables in John, and no symbolic metaphors in the synoptics; names are not attached to the Gospels until about 180; Mary Magdalene could have been 86, childless, and eager to mother unkempt young men; Judaism elevated all of life to the same level as worship of God; the Herods were fairly careful about abiding by rabbinic understandings of at least the ceremonial parts of the law: for instance, Herod provided pools for immersion for himself, family and servants, and issued coins with only agricultural symbols; the claim of an anonymous history was higher than that of a named work, because it implicitly claimed complete knowledge and reliability; fasting does not necessarily mean complete abstinence from all sustenance, Jesus did not refute the devil by saying “That is not the way I do things” but rather, “That is not according to God’s will as it is revealed in the scripture”.
Some quotes:
The Greek god Asclepius, who specialized in healing, had shrines throughout the Mediterranean world. Dozens of brief accounts of his healings have survived. The priests at his principal cult site, Epidaurus in Greece, copied inscriptions from wooden votive offerings in to large stone stelae, which have survived. A modern physician would regard many of these healings as quite believeable. A woman who had been unable to become pregnant went to his shrine and slept overnight in the dormitory. During the night she dreamed that one of Asclepius’ sacred snakes entered her. She arose, went home, and immediately became pregnant. The modern medical explanation would be that her inability to become pregnant was psychosomatic and that the vision overcame the mental block, so that her body would function in the normal way. Sigmund Freud, of course, would have a lot to say about the sexual symbolism of the serpent. Other reports of healings, however, are completely incredible by modern scientific standards. A man who had lost his eyes and had only empty sockets dreamed that the god poured ointment into his eye sockets; and when he awoke he had eyes and could see.
The interesting thing is that these stories stand side by side, the priests apparently not seeing that some of the healings are not only more believable than others, but that some are completely impossible. That is, they did not draw boundary lines between credible and incredible where medical science today would draw them. If the god could produce one kind of miracle, he could produce another. The modern reader is inclined to make distinctions: stories that we find credible are regarded as possibly ‘true’, while those that are incredible are ‘fiction’. ‘Fiction’ usually implies a moral judgment: dishonest. Although ancient people knew about fraud and dishonesty in religious claims, and were often suspicious of fantastic stories, they did not draw the line between truth and fiction precisely where we would. They did not regard it as impossible for spiritual forces to influence the physical world in tangible ways, and this view meant that tales of miracles could develop in the circle of sincere and honest people. Today a lot of people regard spiritual forces and miracles in the very same way and do not accept the standards of medical science. Consequently, there are still stories of miraculous cures, many of which emanate from Lourdes and other places of religious pilgrimage. My own assumption about such stories is that many of the ‘incredible’ ones are based on wishful thinking, others on exaggeration, and only a very few on the conscious wish to deceive. I take the same view of the stories told by the pious devotees of Asclepius. The most important points for the reader of this book to bear in mind are that miraculous stories were common in the ancient world and that we should hesitate before assigning them to either ‘truth’ or ‘deliberate falsehood’.
In order to see Jesus as he really was, we must recognise that the ethical teaching of the Sermon on the Mount does not tell the whole story. He was not just a teacher or a moralist. According to Mark, his fame derived from healing, and especially from exorcisms. This, in turn, raises the question of Jesus and magic and erratic behaviour.
A good list of ways to disagree about law (a. a written law is wrong, should be repealed and disobeyed, b. a written law is wrong and should be repealed but should be obeyed until it is, c. make a claim of mitigating circumstances in order to justify transgression, d. interpret the law so as to change it, e. avoid/evade laws without repealing them, f. criticize the law for not going far enough and thus believe that it should be extended, g. create supplementary rules and practices that govern precisely how the law is to be obeyed) is followed by some good words on Jesus and the law:
New Testament scholars have often said that Jesus opposed the law, or that he opposed parts of it. The most common suggestion is that he opposed the ritual law but favoured the moral law. The people who make such suggestions rarely clarify in what sense Jesus opposed the law. That is, they seldom deal with the distinctions that are necessary if one is to discuss the law at all. Do they mean to say that, in Jesus’ view, God did not give the law to Moses? That Jesus disagreed with a particular interpretation? That he sometimes avoided individual laws? (…) …we ask only if Jesus opposed the law. The short answer is that he does not: rather, he requires a stricter code of practice. No one who observed the admonitions of Matthew 5 would transgress the law, and Jesus does not propose that any part of the Mosaic code should be repealed.(…) This section of Matthew has often been cited as showing Jesus’ ‘opposition’ to the law. But heightening the law is not opposing it, though (as we just saw) it implies a kind of criticism. (…) In view of the indisputable fact that Jesus thought that the Jewish scripture contained the revealed word of God, and that Moses had issued commandments that should be followed, we should be very hesitant to accept the common view of New Testament scholars that he had actually opposed the Jewish law. This is all the more true, of course, since the passages in which there are disagreements about the law reveal no direct opposition to it. (…) Although he did not oppose the law, he did indicate that what was most important was accepting him and following him. This could eventually lead to the view that the law was unnecessary….
A.B. Bruce has better explanations of Jesus’ conflict with the Pharisees about the Sabbath. Perhaps this is due to the fact that Sanders seems to think a) that other documents have more historical value than the NT, and b) that if he doesn’t know about a law or interpretation that it could not have existed, thus assuming finality of historical knowledge and using this as a foundation to judge the reliability of the gospel narratives. He does not see that Mark shows a principle in operation without chronological concern, but rather cites similar incidents together (he recognizes that it is not chronological, but thinks Mark meant to present it as though it were). If his historical statements about the tolerance for different interpretations and traditions is true, his point of view still fails to take into account that fact that enmity against a person results in any stick being good enough to beat him with. Errors in detail, like stating that Luke’s story of Peter’s vision in Acts 10 means that according to Luke Jesus did not teach His disciples that all foods were clean (quite forgetting that Jesus told His disciples many things that they did not understand), make one suspicious of the value of other conclusions which one hasn’t the means so ready to hand to judge. He shows the weakness of liberalism. By hypothesis they limit Christ to being an ordinary mortal, and on the grounds of that gratuitous assumption which runs contrary to the whole tenor of the gospels, rule out or allow what appears to them to be probable. This makes the line between scholarship and gas too fine for the liberals to observe. By what authority do they determine the grounds of probability?