Easter 2006

A New Perspective on Jesus
What the Quest for the Historical Jesus Missed

by James D.G. Dunn
Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic 2005 (125 pp.)

A Review by Dr. Paul S. Russell

Scholarship can be a great tool for the discovery of truth, when practiced in an intelligent and controlled fashion. When based on false premises and uncontrolled by careful checking and study, however, it can lead to incorrect conclusions that have the appearance of assured fact. Nowhere is this more likely than in fields which have limited information to use to study their subjects. The historical study of Jesus falls directly into this category.

Scholars have been frustrated for centuries by the lack of non-Christian evidence to use to examine the gospels for accuracy. To fill this gap, they have tried to devise methods that would allow them to penetrate below the surface of the texts we have to see how they were put together, in the hope of drawing closer to a direct view of Jesus. The dominant approach to this task has been to try to discover traces of earlier written documents that might have been used to construct the gospels we have.

Within the last century, however, scholars in other areas have begun to develop methods to study oral traditions in literature and it has become clearer and clearer that, in fact, it is to this kind of writing that the gospels belong. Of course, an examination of the earliest Christian writings has long been seen to show this kind of oral preaching about Jesus, but scholars of New Testament have been reluctant to take this proposal seriously due, in my opinion, to a combination of inertia and an unwillingness to abandon a technique they had mastered. Now, a major scholar of New Testament, James D.G. Dunn, has published some lectures in which he lays out the importance of this idea of oral preaching and its consequences for our knowledge of Jesus.

No longer would finding differing versions of a story mean one must be inaccurate, for more than one story can circulate from eye-witnesses and can reflect those people's experiences correctly. No longer should we presume that similar stories stem from one event, Professor Dunn takes seriously the possibility that Jesus repeated His teachings in various places and had similar encounters with similar sorts of people. No more should we think of the memories of Jesus as dead things that could only be corrupted by later generations; instead, we should realize that they were living witnesses of the experiences of His followers and that they were guarded and shared by those who witnessed them and those they entrusted them to. Professor Dunn has given scholars, and all Christians, a new tool to examine the gospels and we are all in his debt. Bible Study leaders and dedicated readers should be able to read this brief book of lecturers and take away from it a great deal to speed them on their journey through the gospels to the feet of Christ.