Historicity

And he departed from our sight that we might return to our heart, and there find Him. For He departed, and behold, He is here. - St Augustine

In the tradition of being a March bookworm, I was also a bookworm for lent. I decided that instead of giving up something, I would spend the time that Jesus spent preparing for his ministry in preparing my heart for his arrival this Easter.

I did so in perhaps an unconventional way, by exploring the historicity of Jesus' life and the faith that he initiated through his teachings, death and resurrection. In doing this, I had to place aside some preconceived notions and even my belief in bits and pieces, to have an open mind about what two historians, with two very different interpretations of who Jesus was and what he did, said was truth.

Though at places I struggled to read this book, I really appreciated it. I do not consider myself a cookie-cutter believer, but when it comes to the basics, I am quite traditional. I definitely gravitated more toward the conservative scholar's viewpoints on foundational tenets of belief - that there was a bodily resurrection, that Jesus is truly God, and so forth. But even a conservative historian will make statements that shock his faith family in the balancing of scripture with the "cold hard facts" of ancient world context.

I found it affirming to see that neither scholar put much stock into whether or not Mary conceived Jesus virginally. To me, Mary's exploits, or piety, do not have a bearing on who her son was. I also don't feel the need to keep a tally of all the prophecies Jesus fulfilled - he'd be my redeemer if he rode into Jerusalem on a moped.

I wrestled with some of the intriguing possibilities that the liberal scholar pointed out - for instance, how an account can be true without really having happened. Depending on how you see the world, you might assent to this idea immediately, or you might not buy it at all, even after trying to genuinely consider such a plausibility for a good long while. Can a story be true and not historical? The liberal scholar makes this point for accounts beyond Jesus' parables, which are obvious illustrations meant to be metaphors. He suggests that many of the resurrection sightings, and Jesus' less practical miracles - like turning water into wine, are stories that point out truths about Jesus without ever happening in real time. For the scholar, these parts of the Bible are real without really having happened. Other people, whether in defense of a literal scriptural reading or in mocking of it, would call anything in the Bible that didn't really happen lies, heresies, fairy tales, or wish fulfillment. And so they might be.

But where I loved the book was in its ability to take me into the world where Jesus lived. After reading, I could see him more clearly as a Jewish man pointing to the Jewish God, or as I believe, the universal God, our creator and the one who loves us.

I came through this lens of history to have greater faith that Jesus acted like a Jewish messiah, he taught and served like this messiah, he died with the purposes of this messiah, and he actualized this messianic purpose through the life-restoring sacrifice of himself for creation. Even if you believe Jesus was only a man, setting him within his historical context, its clear he acted with the heart of his God.

Easter is the result of the historical Jesus and the divine Jesus, celebrated by believers and by all who find renewal in his way, his life, and his heart.