SBL Motion for Atlanta

Daniel Kirk has posted that he has received the following, which will be presented as a motion at the SBL business meeting in Atlanta. It is a four-part motion, which evidently has the backing of some heavy-hitters in the Society:

1. That the mission statement of SBL be emended to read “fostering critical biblical scholarship.”

2. That only students who have been admitted to a doctoral program be permitted to read papers at the annual meeting, and that those students should have the approval of their doctoral advisers.

3. That the “core values” of SBL be emended to include the following statement: “Public discourse in SBL should not be based on confessional norms, but we welcome the participation of people of all persuasions.”

4. That  groups that  have doctrinal requirements shall not be eligible for Affiliate status, but may participate in the “Additional Meetings” category of the Annual Meeting.

If you want your voice to be heard, I suppose you should make the trip to Atlanta. See you there!

Scholarship and the Church? Raymond Brown weighs in

Here’s a quote-worthy passage from Raymond Brown’s Introduction to the New Testament (Doubleday, 1997). I think it’s particularly relevant to some of the conversations taking place regarding the SBL, as well as the perennial discussion regarding the relationship between the Church and the scholars who subject the Scriptures of Christianity and Judaism to scrutiny. Should Christians be afraid of scholarship? Should scholars fear informed Christian input? Listen in as Brown gives his opinion. He is responding to historical Jesus research, but his words are relevant for biblical scholarship in general:

On the other hand, the Bultmannian reaction to the quest [for the historical Jesus], which almost makes faith independent of (inevitably uncertain) historical research, need not be the only solution. Indeed, one can argue that churches and believers should not be indifferent to careful historical scholarship about the Bible. Rather, leavening and rephrasing traditional ideas under the impact of careful scholarship is better than either overthrowing the ideas or ignoring scholarship. Following the principle of fides quaerens intellectum (faith seeking intellectually respectable expression), Christian belief has nothing to fear solid, careful scholarly research. Such a position requires openness on both sides. On the part of church authorities, there should be a recognition that past phrasings of faith are time-conditioned and are susceptible to being rephrased. Through critical biblical study, what was once assumed to be a necessary aspect of belief (e.g., creation in six days with rest on the seventh) may prove to be only a dramatic way of phrasing what remains essential (namely, that no matter how things came into existence, it was through God’s planning and power). For their part scholars would do well to avoid rhetoric whereby their discoveries are presented as certain, making the discoverers the infallible arbiters of Christian faith. Biblical books are documents written by those who believed in the God of Abraham and the Father of Jesus Christ; good sense suggests that communities sharing that faith have an authority in dealing with those books. (page 828)

What do you think? Was Bultmann correct in positing a disconnect between scholarship and faith? Or was Raymond Brown on the money by suggesting that the Church should assimilate reasoned scholarship into its dogma?

The Death of Dale Allison’s Jesus

What follows is a brief write up on the death of Dale Allison’s Jesus. I say “Dale Allison’s Jesus” rather than simply “Jesus” as a reminder that all historical reconstructions, whether by Allison, Meier, Dunn, or others, are just that…reconstructions. The historian’s Jesus is not the same as Jesus of Nazareth; it is our reconstruction of what he may have said, done, or perhaps thought (this last one is the most precarious endeavor).

In The End of the Ages Has Come: An Early Interpretation of the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus (Fortress, 1985), Dale Allison attempts to reconstruct the earliest meaning given to the death and resurrection of Jesus, which he locates in the variegated Jewish expectations regarding the “great tribulation,” followed by the vindication of the righteous at the general resurrection of the dead (e.g. 2 Apoc. Bar. 25–29; 1 En. 99–100; Sib. Or. III, and 4 Ezra ).

Like many other first-century Jews, Allison’s Jesus interpreted his life in light of the Scriptures, particularly Dan 7. Understanding Dan 7:13-14 collectively, he saw himself as the “one like a son of man” pictured, who represents the people of God (p. 128–37). Allison’s Jesus located himself and his disciples at the center of the coming great tribulation, and he believed his mission was, at least in part, to announce the coming of the Kingdom of God, which was at war with the Kingdom of Satan (p. 123). Allison’s Jesus did foresee his death, which he anticipated would come about as a result of the great tribulation. It is not immediately clear whether Allison’s Jesus saw himself currently in the midst of the great tribulation (pp. 117, 118, 120) or whether he saw it as something imminent, but still future (pp. 141, 149, 170). However, he did not foresee his death through any divine prescience, rather he simply deduced that death was his lot by virtue of (1) the whole prophetic and apocalyptic tradition that anticipated suffering before the final triumph of the people of God, (2) the history of prophets over the centuries, which emphasized the prophets role as one who suffers, (3) the death of John the Baptist, which would have underscored that death was still part of the prophetic job description, (4) common sense, especially in light of the latter stages of his ministry (p. 116). Moreover, Allison’s Jesus is not said to have attributed any soteriological meaning to his death other than what was entailed in the pattern of suffering-vindication. Thus, he hoped that, after suffering unjustly, both he and his martyred followers would find vindication at the imminent general resurrection of the dead (p. 140).

While Allison does not offer a full reconstruction of the historical Jesus per se, his treatment of Jesus’ reasoned anticipation of his impending premature death does fit comfortably within the overall portrait of Jesus as a Jewish apocalyptic prophet, which Allison espouses elsewhere. Allison’s Jesus hoped that the Kingdom of God would be fully manifested soon as the time of eschatological tribulation drew to a climax. For Allison, Jesus was neither caught unawares by his death, nor did he have divine control over it. Rather, he anticipated that he would suffer and die in the present eschatological distress, after which time he would experience vindication at the general resurrection of the dead (p. 141). This, Allison’s Jesus believed, was the pattern to be followed by all his followers.