[Dialogue] Spong QA

[KroegerD at aol.com]

Walter Gust from  Richland Center, Wisconsin writes: 
"I have just read your column  entitled, "Jesus for the Non-Religious." I 
guess I am left wondering why if one  can strip away most if not all the gospel 
details of his life, he can continue  to exist in history. Why not take the 
view that Canadian humanist historian  Early Doherty takes that Christianity grew 
in part out of the Greco-Roman world  being impressed by the Hebrew 
scriptures and later the movement demanded a  leader and midrash provided by the Hebrew 
cultish groups in Palestine provided  this. (I hope I am doing justice to 
Professor Doherty)."  
Dear Walter,What you read was one  column that arose out of a two-year study 
that sought to penetrate the years  between the death of Jesus (about 30 C.E.) 
and the writing of the gospels that  occurred 40-70 years later (between 70 
and 100 C.E.) In those years the Jesus of  history was wrapped inside the 
Hebrew Scriptures, interpreted through the  liturgy of the synagogue, shaped by the 
messianic expectations of the Jewish  people, translated into the Greek 
language and finally transformed into being  the founder of a religion. Though 
these things make it difficult to determine  exactly who Jesus was, what he said 
and what he did, they do not destroy the  human being who inspired this creedal 
and mythological development. I think it  is clear that Jesus of Nazareth was 
a person of history and your letter gives me  the opportunity to spell out my 
reasons for coming to this conclusion.  
Paul says in Galatians (written 51-52 C.E.) that he has in fact spoken and  
had dealings with Cephas (Peter) and James, the Lord's brother, early in his  
career as a Christian, somewhere between four and nine years after the  
crucifixion. I get to that range of years by taking the generally accepted dates  of 
Paul's conversion worked out in the 19th century by historian Adolf Harnack  
of 1 to 6 years after the crucifixion. I then couple that with Paul's  
autobiographical note in Galatians that three years later he went up to  Jerusalem to 
confer with Cephas, or Peter. That gives us four to nine years as  the date of 
this consultation. Certainly Paul, who never claims that he saw or  knew the 
Jesus of history, believed that he knew those who did.  
Unfortunately, the Christian Church has for most of its history literalized  
its scriptures, claiming for them a historicity they never possessed.  
Contemporary biblical scholarship has helped us dismantle that literalism and  that 
is what causes people to think that by dismantling the myth, we have  destroyed 
the man. I think the opposite is true. By dismantling the myth, we are  
recovering the man.  
When the book I am now writing is published in the spring of 2007, under the  
title, "Jesus for the Non-Religious," I hope to make this clear.  
-- John Shelby Spong 


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