Jesus was an epochal figure. For as long as human beings have curiosity about the past that helped shape them, Jesus will be a figure of fascination. He was, after all, the “founder” and focal point of the religion that has done more to shape Western culture than any other. So there will always be interest in what made him tick, what it was about him that attracted attention in the first place, why he was executed.
Christians have that interest redoubled tenfold or even a hundredfold. For them Jesus is the single most important man to have walked this earth. An orthodox belief that in and through this man God manifested himself as never before or since makes it inevitable that they will want to know as much as possible about this man. If God did indeed express himself through Jesus of Nazareth during his three (or whatever) years of mission, probably in the late 20s of the common era, predominantly in the relatively remote region of Lower Galilee, then it is of first importance to observe what he said and did during these years and in that context as clearly as possible. And if later reflection has elaborated (or obscured) the witness of Jesus himself, then it is proper to want to strip away that elaboration (or obscurity). It is Jesus himself the believer wants to encounter, not someone dressed up in robes borrowed from philosophy. If Jesus was indeed the incarnation of God, then what he said and did was presumably potent enough, and any secondary elaboration will simply detract from Jesus’ own testimony.
Such has been the motivation behind what is commonly called “the quest of the historical Jesus.” It has been primarily a scholarly quest, but expressive for the most part of the same restless curiosity and ardent desire to witness for oneself the reality of the historical phenomenon that motivates the sightseer or pilgrim of every age. The quest got under way as a serious scholarly pursuit more than two hundred years ago, and it has emptied many more inkwells than any other such historical inquiry. But it has also caused serious disquiet in many Christian circles less attuned to the scholarly methods and critical integrity of the questers.
My own conviction, which has grown steadily over the years, is that the quest as predominantly carried out over the last two centuries has been seriously flawed—and flawed from the outset in the perspective from which Jesus and the quest have been viewed. Quite proper concern to strip away later accretions has failed to distinguish the effect Jesus (must have) had from the subsequent evaluation of him. There has been too much looking back at Jesus through the lens of a long-established literary culture and too little appreciation of how the impact of Jesus would have made lasting effect in an oral society. The overall impression left by Jesus has been subjected to fine-detail critique and reconstruction without adequate appreciation of the extent to which that damaged the whole picture.
In the chapters that follow, I offer both a critique of these threefold failings and a new perspective on Jesus—a perspective that takes it as an axiomatic starting point that Jesus must have made a considerable impact on his disciples, which reflects on the way that impact will have come to expression in the earliest shared talk of the first disciple groups, and which attempts to focus primarily on the large picture and the overall impression that Jesus evidently left. If this endeavor helps to demonstrate the importance of asking such historical questions, as well as the dangers of some of the ways that have been pursued in seeking out answers to the questions, I will be well satisfied. And if my own attempted answers make sense to readers and help them to perceive Jesus of Nazareth more clearly for themselves, I will be highly delighted. But above all, my hope is, as with the larger book that these chapters in part summarize and in part carry forward, that the readers will begin to reexperience something of what the first disciples and churches experienced when they told again the stories about Jesus and reflected together on his teaching, and relived in turn the memories of Jesus’ first followers. Now read on.