I started The Cambridge History of Christianity: Origins to Constantine. In this post, I'll highlight what Frances Young says on page 22:
"From
this critique came the proposal to replace the criterion of double
dissimilarity with a criterion of historical plausibility: [In the words
of Theissen and Winter in Quest for the plausible Jesus,]
'each individual historical phenomenon is to be considered authentic
that plausibly can be understood in its Jewish context and that also
facilitates a plausible explanation for its later effects in Christian
history.' Of course what is plausible to one investigator will not
necessarily be plausible to another. The nineteenth century did not
find miracles plausible. The late twentieth century, exploiting the
approach of social anthropology, is more prepared to acknowledge that,
in pre-modern cultures, the way the world works is differently conceived
and that there are many parallels in ancient literature to the kind of
charismatic healer we find in the gospels, and so judge the plausibility
issues rather differently. Indeed, one proposal characterizes Jesus as
a magician like the well-attested magicians known from other ancient
sources."
I have two musings:
1. The criterion of
dissimilarity says that one way we can identify what is historical about
Jesus in the Gospels is to see where Jesus is dissimilar from Second
Temple Judaism and also the Christianity that came after him. I have
mixed feelings about this criterion. On the negative side, I
think that something can be historical about Jesus, and yet be
continuous with Second Temple Judaism and later Christianity.
Jesus lived in a Second Temple Jewish environment, and so why shouldn't
we expect for him to reflect that in areas? And Jesus was the
inspiration for the early Christian movement, so why shouldn't we expect
for it be continuous with the historical Jesus as it draws from what
Jesus said and did?
On the positive side, I think that the
criterion of dissimilarity----as least when it compares Jesus with
early Christianity----is useful in that it can refute the charge that
the early Christians made everything up about what Jesus said and did.
Why would the early Christians make up things about Jesus that are
embarrassing or discontinuous from how they see the world? Regarding
the aspect of the criterion of dissimilarity that contrasts Jesus with
Second Temple Judaism, I can't say that I understand that as much.
Perhaps the aim is to find out why Jesus stood out in his environment,
and the presumption is that this happened because he presented new
ideas. Scholars who employ the criterion of dissimilarity perhaps sift
out the things that are discontinuous with Second Temple Judaism and yet
continuous with early Christianity, and what is left is Jesus in his
originality.
In my opinion, the criterion of dissimilarity has its
limits because I think that something about Jesus can be historical,
while being continuous with Second Temple Judaism or Christianity. And
so the criterion of plausibility that Young mentions makes a degree of
sense to me. And yet, the criterion of plausibility does not
appear to me to be as tight as the criterion of dissimilarity. What is
plausible can be rather subjective. But identifying dissimilarities is
not as subjective.
2. I appreciate Young's discussion of
how late twentieth century scholars treat Jesus' miracles, in contrast
with how nineteenth century scholars did so. I get frustrated
with conservative Christians who act like biblical scholarship is still
in the clutches of Enlightenment naturalism and thus excludes the
possibility of miracles. My impression is that many scholars nowadays
are open to some of the miracles being historical, but they may
attribute them to natural causes. And, in my opinion, it makes
sense that they do not dismiss the historicity of miracles. Part of
scholarship is acknowledging that people in the past had a different
worldview from people in the present, and so imposing a notion that
miracles are impossible onto the New Testament simply fails to
sympathetically understand the worldview of New Testament authors.