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Minding Scripture, Part 2: The Historical Jesus

August 28, 2025 • Think ND

Episode Topic: The Historical Jesus

What can truly be known about Jesus, and how can we read accounts about him in a reasonable way? Does a critical understanding of the historical Jesus complicate or nourish one’s faith? Gabriel Reynolds and Tzvi Novick from the University of Notre Dame engage in a conversation on the Gospel narratives and on the earliest documents which mention Jesus with the famous New Testament historian John Meier.

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John Meier, University of Notre Dame

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This podcast is a part of the ThinkND Series titled Minding Scripture.

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Scripture shapes the lives of billions of people around the world, yet scriptures, both the Bible and the Quran only gain meaning when they're interpreted by the human mind. Minding scripture, a podcast from the Department of Theology at the University of Notre Dame. Explores the meaning of reason with the scriptures of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In our inaugural episode, we discussed the beginning the figure of Adam. Today we will turn to the figure of Jesus. I am Gabriel Sa Reynolds, professor of Islamic Studies in Theology and the World Religions World Church Program at Notre Dame. Joining me is Professor Svi Novik, welcome. Thanks. Looking forward to our discussion and our special guest, professor John Meyer. Thank you for inviting me. What can truly be known about Jesus of Nazareth? To what degree can the New Testament accounts of his life be trusted? How can one read these accounts in a reasonable reasoned manner? Can this still be done with eyes of faith? These are some of the questions we would like to explore with Professor John Meyer today on Minding Scripture, a podcast dedicated to the intersection of reason, the Bible and the Quran. Now, I'd like to offer a very brief introduction. We could do a very long one because John, you're a very distinguished scholar with a long history of publications and lectures. But I'd like to just single out two elements of your academic career. The first is that John Meyer is the author of a Marginal Jew. Published in five volumes, and I think you're working on the six. Mm-hmm. A magisterial study of the historical Jesus. And then second to note that no one less than Pope Benedict the 16th quotes John Meyer in the Holy Father's work. Jesus of Nazareth. Alright, so you are, you've been doing a whole lot of work, uh, on the historical Jesus, five volumes working on the sixth. Maybe we could just begin by situating this, you're, you're not, of course, the first person to be studying the historical Jesus inquiring to what we can know about Jesus. Where would you say this kind of inquiry begins? Where does this start? This kind of question actually, I think it starts in the second century ce. Pagan Flo called Celsius, or Celsus writes a work called the True Doctrine. And in it he attacks the Christians for various things being intolerant among others, but especially that they're gospel and he knows the gospel, he knows the for gospel that they all disagree with one another. So obviously this can't be true. And then in the third century, answering him probably the greatest mind of the ancient church origin. Writes a book called Against Celsus and he starts going through answering Celsus about all these discrepancies in the gospels. Origin admits he knows the text perfectly well, admits that one gospel writer says one thing about an incident, another says another, and he develops. You might call a philosophical approach, middle Platonism to explain that yes, there's the history here. Uh, the way each gospel writer presents the history, but we must get beyond that or behind that, there's a deeper sentence to description to the real ultimate deep meaning. That isn't just there lying there in the text. So he sees both and admit as a problem. He has his approach in the fifth century in the West, St. Augustine mm-hmm. Writes a whole book on, uh, the agreement of the evangelist. Notice what he was, the agreement, uh, well, their consensus, that address, he uses the word the consensus and intriguingly, he says, well, you have to understand it's the same incident Yes. Really happened, but each. Gospel writer wanted to focus on a particular theological theme. So that's why Matthew presents it this way. Mark presents it that way, which actually is rather good, you know, there is that, uh, important point there. Well, that's great. So then, so you've got the early church fathers who are aware of the fact that you have different stories. The gospels are telling somewhat different stories about Jesus. Uh, but then when you get to the modern. Research on, you know, the historical Jesus, who Jesus was. If we go kind of behind the Gospels and look at history as it actually was, that's a controversial thing. It becomes controversial among Christians. Why is that controversial? If Origin was doing it, if Augustine was doing it well, of course, uh, you had. Renaissance Age of Reason, 17th century and the course enlightenment, the 18th century in particular, developing really from the Renaissance onwards, the historical critical sense that you just can't trust a document saying this is what happened in the ancient world. Wait a minute. Uh, what if we find out from other documents, there are contradictions here that the document doesn't date from the time it claims, it dates.'cause we've studied Latin. This is modern Latin. They're using it. So you begin to get a whole critical mindset about history that wasn't true of the ancient world in general. And this is, you might say, dare I say, the Coan revolution in the study of history. Then of course 19th century you might say there's a professionalization. Of the study of history, especially in the German universities, uh, where they had the rather naive idea we could get back to exactly as it had been. And of course today, you might say in a postmodern context, that is under suspicion as well. But I, I wanted to ask, does in this sort of enterprise mm-hmm. Of enlightenment and later scholarship I is, is it part of the larger battle between sort of secular. Agnostic, maybe atheistic voices seeking to undermine the church's authority? Or is this just scholars doing scholarship? I mean, is is there a, a larger sort of religious war going on, or just scholarship? I, I think the Postmoderns would say there is no such thing as scholarship simply for the sake of scholarship. Everybody's coming at it from particular point of, and indeed, perhaps it's not the very first attempt, but it's usually said to be Herman Samuel Obry Morris. A uh, biblical scholar, a great student of Hebrew at the end of the 18th century, wrote a lengthy work claiming. From a rationalistic enlightened point of view that Jesus actually was indeed just a political messiah of his time, who got what he deserved, got killed his disciples to keep the movement going. Changes Jesus' statement from being a political one. To rather a spiritual one. They, uh, take the body from the tomb and claim there's been a resurrect. So the start of it is basically, you wouldn't say anti-religion. It is a rationalist enlightenment, religion attacking traditional dogmatic Christians. Someone more recently wrote a book called Zealot, right? It seems to be Yes, yes, yes, yes. Of revisiting this order. Oh, we, the interest thing is every. Position imaginable comes back later on as a totally new discovery. Right. Well, if I can, maybe we can turn to the gospels themselves. Mm-hmm. And think about, you know, our, our four gospels in the canonical New Testament, Matthew, mark, Luke, and John. Of course, Matthew, mark, Luke, I guess together are known as the synoptic Gospels. Mm-hmm. They are. I imagine. But you could correct me, our most important source for our knowledge of historical Jesus. But what does sort of serious, sober minded scholar do today in today's research with differences or contradictions between them? Are they a problem? Could you maybe give us an example of how you can work through apparent differences or maybe real differences between the gospel? Uh, yes, certainly. Uh, of course, one has to find a place where John has a passage with the Synoptics, because John, for the most part, simply goes his own way. But especially when we get to the story of Jesus's passion and death, they begin to come together again and for, just take a very small example, but it strikes you right away with the story of Jesus and the disciples leaving the last supper room, leaving the ancient wt city of Jerusalem. Going over to apparently someplace near the Mount of Olives. But the intriguing thing, just as begin the story, the, the gospel writers designate this place differently that Mark probably the earliest gospel speaks of Gethsemane, which means oil press. Matthew, who's basically following Mark for the Passionary agrees. Luke instead tells us that it's on the Mount of Olives, which Luke likes and has used a number of times. Well, it's obviously the same sort of place, uh, oil press, uh, Mount of Olives, uh, with John there is no such designation. Rather, they come to a garden intriguingly. And that garden will come back again as the place where Jesus is buried and where of course Mary Magdalene finds the empty tomb on Easter morning, and many people suggest that is an echo of the Garden of Eden. So you're saying, if I understand correctly, when we speak about Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, we are putting together two different stories. Mm-hmm. And there isn't in the, in the Gospels themselves kind of considered in isolation. There isn't no Garden of Gethsemane. Gethsemane is in, uh, the synoptic gospels and the garden is in John. Yeah. And furthermore, we speak of the AGO. In the Garden of Gethsemane. Well, only Luke uses the term agony, and only Luke has this story of Jesus going into such anguish that his sweat becomes heavy, like drops of blood, and an angel comes to comfort and strengthen him and intriguingly. That particular story of the bloody sweat and the angel is not in all the Greek text of Luke. Many people say it's a later edition. So you begin to see further problems about excuse, which Greek text are you going to use. Mm-hmm. That even gets us into further models now. Now, I guess you might, you might say that, you know, these are scholarly quibbles, you know? Mm-hmm. Uh, was it a garden? Was it not a garden? I mean, that doesn't make all that much of a difference. But you're saying that even in here, even in this small kind of mm-hmm. Example. Mm-hmm. Whether it's a garden really might make a difference because, you know, John might have a vision, might have an interpretation of Jesus, where that garden that he's in is evoking the Garden of Eden. Mm-hmm. Uh, and so even this kind of minor difference that might be dismissed, as you know, ultimately who cares about, about the precise location and its nature. Might be reflecting kind of different theological interpretations. Mm-hmm. Especially when you go through the story and find out John has no anguished prayer, whatever. In fact, there's no prayer, whatever. As soon as Jesus arrives in this garden, in John, the arresting party comes. And Jesus goes forth, confronts them, and cha, whom do you seek? Uh, Jesus Nazareth. Notice their ignorance and he simply says, I am. It's of course, an evocation of the divine name, right? As well as I'm, I'm Jesus, right? So it is. And they fall down at that, right? And total, the, the enemies fall down before a revelation of God. Well, everybody falls down before a revelation. So while in the synoptics you have the agony in the garden. In John's gospel, you have, dare I use the big word, theo, in the garden, God revealing himself. So what if we try to take that next step mm-hmm. And get beyond a reading of scripture or maybe a comparative reading of the gospels to what really happened. Mm-hmm. And what, what really, what really took place can, can we, based on the textual evidence, affirm that. Even if we have different descriptions. Mm-hmm. That there was something that took place. There was a, maybe last supper is another topic, but Yep. Yes. A prayer meeting, confrontation in the garden. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Would you think that's something that can be affirmed? Historic? Well, of course. Where do they, and this is the important thing, amid all the differences, where do they agree? Mm-hmm. That after last supper within the city of Jerusalem, they leave the city go outside. To, and we can sort of locate the general you. Where the Mount of Olives is, is where they had olive presses, et It's a general, it's not that we don't know the place at all. I mean whether he is on the Mount of Olives or whether he's at the base, where indeed the Church of Old Nation now is with the very rock that Jesus is, you know, praying on. We'll show you, be beware, beware of, of tourist guides in Jerusalem. But uh. The intriguing thing is so basically that basic fact and the most important that is where he's arrested and that Judas is scary It. He's the one leading them to show them. We we're told by Luke anyway, this is where he regularly went to pray in the evening to retire, and so Judas would know where it is and he's the one who leads the arresting party, all that they all agree upon. And so of course the intriguing thing is where do they agree amid all the difference. And one might go ahead. No. So, so you say then, uh, as a, as an historian. Uh, we can say with a fair measure of confidence that something like this actually happened. Yeah, yeah. Of course. If he's going to get crucified in there, he's gotta arrested. Presumably he got arrested. Yeah. And I was thinking actually that some disagreement, I mean, I don't know how you think through this as a historical Jesus scholar, but some disagreement may actually be good. Right?'cause it would show there wasn't collusion or Oh, yes, yes. Does that make sense? In fact, I often point out with the infancy narrative of Jesus' birth. Matthew and Luke have totally different stories about the conception and birth of Jesus. The so-called everybody knows the Christmas story. There is no Christmas story in the gospels. Mark and John have nothing. Uh, Matthew and Luke have infancy narratives. But they are almost, quite literally at times, geographically, they go in opposite directions from each other. Hence all the more important is, or amid all the massive disagreement, where do they agree, which means that was a core tradition that both of them received. And so you have Jesus' born during last days of King Herod the Great, he dies in four bc. Jesus was born sometime BC. Why that is, let's not get into the calendars. The sixth century monk who made up the calendar, his math wasn't as good as his piety. So we're all by a number of years Di egoist Jenny, the dwarf. So, uh, you do have, he's born towards the last years of Herod the Great who dies in four bc. He's born in Bethlehem. But raised in Nazareth and Matthew, Luke have totally different explanations of how that could be. And uh, his putative father's named Joseph, his mother's name is Mary. Few other things to have the base, which is sort of core, a basic core, everything else is different. Between the two. In fact, can they contradict each other? Actually, can, can we actually think a, a little bit more about the gospels to focus on the gospels themselves? And you sort of brought us partway there because you did allude at one point to Matthew drawing on mark. Mm-hmm. I know this can get very complicated and we've sort of just wanna make some few, a few general observations. But where do you start in thinking about the gospels? Sometimes we hear that, you know, John is very late. Does that mean it has less historical worth? Um, mark is the earliest, does that mean it has the most? So how do you start, um, dealing with the four gospels? Yeah. Well, of course, first of all, dating the gospels has been. Something of a scholar's game that goes back again to Augustine who thought Matthew was the earliest. You might say the more common view today by no means universal, but the most common view today is that Mark is the first, both Matthew and Luke independently of each other, that from the infancy. Now you can see they don't know each other. Both draw on mark for the basic story. They have, of course, their own traditions, as you can see, the infancy narrative. But besides Mark, there are these large blocks of saying material. Jesus'. Various sayings sometimes hold sermons that Matthew and Luke seem to have in common, although they change it around, obviously. But if they don't know each other. They have this common saying material that is not in Mark one Deduces then, but this is a deduction that there was some other source and most people say some other document. That Matthew and Luke were both able to draw upon independent and quite arbitrarily. It's often said Q represents Kivela in the German. That's not true. You read in every book, but people have researched it said it's an arbitrary, but Q is this arbitrary. Alphabet symbol that designates this supposed hypothetical I stress. Hypothetical document. There are very good scholars today who deny Q ever existed. Mark Goode, for instance, a very fine British scholar has a whole book entitled The Case Against Q. So you're, um, kind of describing the relationship among texts. Mark, Matthew, Luke, and then John kind of is out there. Yep. And maybe this is gonna take you in a too speculative direction for an historian, but what's going on on the ground? In the first couple of centuries, do you envision different churches, different church communities with their own stories about Jesus and their some our trading stories? What's that looking like on the ground? Yeah. Well that again, of course scholars earn and living by disagreeing with each other. So if we all agreed we'd lose our jobs, but basically. I'd say the more common view, again, this is attacked recently, the more common view is that each of the four gospels represents, at least in part, a local church with its own traditions. Mm-hmm. Its own theological take, and the so-called evangelist, the writer of this gospel is a chief teacher. This local church and is both expressing the way the local church understands Jesus, but the individual we can see by the individual evangelist has his own style of Greek, his own consistent theology through the whole gospel. So indeed it's the traditions of the local church, but also there is very the so-called redaction of the gospel, namely, the individual author is projecting his particular theological vision. Which I've, I'm convinced not everybody's convinced, I'm convinced, does mold the take on Jesus in each gospel. The mark in Jesus is not the mathian Jesus and the synoptic. Jesus is definitely not the Jesus of John's gospel. John, I propose that we take a brief pause here. Sure. Sure. There's much more to discuss and when we return from our break, we're gonna look into other sources for the historical Jesus. Mm-hmm. Welcome back to Minding Scripture. At the end of our first segment, I anticipated moving directly to questions about sources outside of the New Testament. Which are useful for our knowledge of the historical Jesus. I'd like however, to ask one more question about the New Testament and specifically about the language of the gospels. You referred John to all of the gospels, of course, having been passed down to us in Greek, but many of our listeners will know that the Jesus was a Palestinian Jew who would've spoken, not Greek presumably, but Aramaic. So where does Aramaic come into all of this? Oh yes. Another disputed question there. As you can see, there's never unanimity. Basically there were four languages. In Palestine in early first century ad there was the Latin, and we have some. We know that because punches pilot insisted on having Latin inscriptions, one of which naming him was discovered in 1961. And it was the confirmation punches pilot against the historian. Tacitus was not the procurator of Villa. He was the prefect of cyclic lower. So you do have, and there are some Latin inscriptions on Aqueduct, et cetera, which of course almost nobody except the punches pilot and his Latin officials around him could possibly understand, except it spoke the language of power. Everybody understood who was ruling and we don't care whether you can read this or not. So that that was Latin, very restricted. The second language was Greek because from the time of Alexander the Great, there was a certain hellenization. Of the Near East, namely Greek influence. Greek culture had come in and Greek was known and spoken by elites and written by the, namely, the upper crust of the upper class, the rich, the educated. Some people claim that Jesus spoke Greek. There are whole books on that subject. I would claim in general, if he knew it at all. Probably some words here and there for commercial. Remember he was in business for a long time. Uh, IOUs receipts, things like that. A few things of ability perhaps when he goes up to Jerusalem to deal with some people in Greek, but I don't think there's any sign that he knew Greek to any great extent. There was, of course Hebrew, the sacred language. Which some people used to think more or less it died out except for the temple. Now, of course, from the Dead Sea Scrolls from other documents. We know, especially if you were fiercely religious or fiercely nationalistic. You were very insistent on keeping Hebrew alive, so Hebrew never died out even as a spoken language. Yeah. Now it seems to be judging by the Dead Sea scroll, it seems to have been somewhat maybe artificial at times. They're trying to imitate the Old Testament Hebrew, and it's not always coming out quite right, but other documents seem to indicate it is moving towards a more. Popular Hebrew, dear, I say a slightly later Hebrew, which we find in the early rabbis, so it is alive at least in certain groups, but the dominant language is, is a. Then finally, I, I left the dominant one to that, namely Aramaic, which I, I almost died when I was listening to indeed a CD of, uh, lectures by a professor won't be named to see who was, who explained about the first century. That Aramaic was a dialect of Hebrew and I almost, I was driving the car. I almost went into a dish. Aramaic was a much longer lived language, much widely spread. LA it was used, if you'll excuse the phrase, the lingua franca of the ancient Near East for say, for instance, when you have the Persian Empire. Well, most people outside of what we call Iran didn't speak Persian. Right? How is the emperor going to communicate with all these various satraps governors everywhere? In fact, we seem to have indications. Some of the correspondence that he would speak in Persian. The scribe, as the scribe is running it down, would put it into Aramaic. The letter is sent to the satra in say, far Western province. The scribe then. As they deliver the letter and give it to the state, trapp at least orally translates it back from the Aramaic into the local or the local language. The local language. So Aramaic was the grand overarching Semitic to use the big umbrella. Semi Arabic is Semitic. Syriac is Semitic, just late Aramaic. And of course Hebrew is Semitic, right? And Hebrew is of course a very specialized Semitic language. So why don't we have the, I mean, the gospels were the first versions of the gospels. Then in Aramaic, there are people together, people who say that, especially German authors 18 19th century suggested Maha, for instance, suggest that Matthew originally was an Aramaic. That was the birth of Aramaic Matthew, and then the Matthew we have in Greek. Is a later translation now by a study of Mark versus Matthew. Uh, Matthew is basically Mark, not only expanded, but in better Greek. So the whole idea of an Aramaic math, maybe the whole gospel doesn't seem to be very likely at all that some of it least the, or. If not written sources of the gospel are an Aramaic, I think most people would agree upon. Because at certain points of the gospel, Jesus speaks an Aramaic, notably in Mark. Right. And at some point anyhow, we have some kind of translation, right, because Jesus spoke Aramaic, then his disciples spoke Aramaic. So I mean, so we have this cliche lost in translation. Yeah. And what, what would you say. Although, may I disagree with one thing though? Yeah, please. Please. That indeed. Well, the first disciple, of course, after Easter early church in Palestine, all ame, we know from the acts of the apostles that from the beginning, mm. Certain disciples of Jesus in Jerusalem were so-called Hellenism, who, uh, their family at some point had come in from the diaspora, the larger Roman empire say, and settled in Jerusalem. Their prime language was Greek. So that me, Joseph Meyer, Greek Aramic call point from the beginning. Hmm. In Jerusalem was coexistence, the gospel tradition was in Greek as well as in arama, which once again, complicates. Right? So the language situation, it becomes complicated very quickly. Right. But, uh, but, but if we're, if we're speaking at, of, in that very kind of original moment, say from, uh, from Jesus himself and his immediate circle who are conducting their conversations and his teachings, et cetera, in Aramaic, I mean, is it possible to point to. One or two important elements of Jesus and his teachings that are, to a systemic extent, lost or obscured in translation or to put the, I guess the translation question more metaphorically is there, are there, are there things that are lost or obscured when we move from. Uh, Jesus in his Jewish context to an early Christian context, that's, that quickly ends up defining itself against, uh, Judaism. So I'd be curious Yeah, either at the, at the level of language, maybe in terms of concretely or then more metaphorically at the level of the historical context mm-hmm. What that, what that transition involves and what might be lost or obscured in it. Yeah. So I mentioned the name of Joseph Meyer, the Arame scholars do. And their whole monographs on this. Go through the gospels and say the excuse the phrase, this looks like an ama. Namely, yes, it's in Greek, but it's rather strange Greek, and it doesn't make too much sense as a Stan. But if you put it back into what have likely been it's arama, then it makes sense. Mm-hmm. That there's either rhythm or rhyme or play on words or something like that that is there in the Aramaic. But isn't there when you translate it into Greek, so indeed, beyond simply the Aramaic words of Jesus. There are certainly cases in the gospels where scholars speak of AMAs. Now, again, you get it, I'm sorry, but there's always somebody contradicting somebody. Oh, there are whole books that dispute that by saying, excuse me, you're not considering the very pop. Unliterary Greek that we find in the Greek papyri. You are thinking of more formal than the Greek papyri. We can find all these phenomena. Mm-hmm. And they're not translations Barry. They're letters from one person to another person. And so what we thought was amass, actually just bad Greek. So it gets, for instance, we talking about beforehand the revelation of John, the last book in New Testament. People said, well, this person actually must have Hebrew or Aramaic as his first language because his Greek is so horrible and so grammatic, which we miss a in translation because the English translations are good English. But once again, I had to plow through a whole doctoral dissertation where the person. Wrote a Greek grammar and syntax book, as you'd find with any Greek, uh, book on grammar and syntax, except all the examples were taken from the revelation of John compared with Greek papyri. And he said there are very few. Greek horrors Deviant or Yes, in, in the, uh, book of Revelation that can't be found in Pop Greek papyri. The man was just uneducated. That's all right. So could I turn the discussion maybe a bit from language to something that's connected, I think to the. Aramaic linguistic context. Mm-hmm. But namely the Jewishness. Mm-hmm. Of, of Jesus. Could you speak to that a little bit? I mean, do, in the gospels we meet Jesus the Jew, I think. Mm-hmm. I mean, we have him in the synagogue and he's, um, observing the, the festivals and Right. So there, there is some of that. Is that still missed by most observers, are scholars, the Jewishness of Jesus. I, it is a strange answer, but I would say up until around the 1970s it often was, but in the soap hold quotation marks third quest for the historical Jesus, there was, I think, again, Copernican revolution when it came to not just giving lip service to Jesus a Jew, but really trying to take that seriously for understanding him. The great names Gazer Esh of Oxford EP Sanders. Duke, uh, James Charlesworth of Princeton, just to speak of English language scholars. And one time after another you get books called Jesus the Jew, the Jewishness of Jesus ep Santa Jesus within Judaism. And so I'd say it is perhaps with the last half century. That scholars have. It's not that they didn't know it before or didn't talk about it before because there were some Jewish books on the historical Jesus, which obviously emphasize this, but in general, I would say it's only in the half century. The scholars have taken this with radical seriousness and see Jesus very much engaged Volume four of my series of Marginal Jews, 700 and what 40 pages is simply dedicated to. If indeed you say Jesus is a Jew, what is the beating heart of Judaism, if not the Mosaic law and the interpretation acting out called halakha, how you actually live it out? And so the entire seven 14 pages is simply dedicated to Jesus's engagement, debating living out his vision. Of what the Mosaic law is. So would you say, I mean these developments in the scholarship kind of, uh, this growing recognition of Jesus as Jew and how important that is to understanding who Jesus is, does that have the effect of. Anchoring Christianity as a whole more in Judaism than we might have thought? Or does it have the effect of highlighting a certain break that comes after Jesus, or both? Yeah, I, I think you, once again, uh, scholars have to make a living publish books, and so you get, uh, certainly different views on this. The famous parting of the ways theory, you know, when and how did Jews and Christians separate from each other and form. Uh, different religions. I would say that actually there is no one and simple story of the parting of the ways that at different places, at different times the separation because both religions are developing. Rather rapidly, but differently in different places. If what is so often ignored, the so-called Syriac fathers of the church who are writing in a late form of Aramaic, first of all, there is no break, there is no transition over to Greek, and a number of them seem to be converts from Judaism. Uh, there is, um, actually discovered only in the last century or so these, uh, homilies. On Easter written by apparently a convert from Judaism in Asia Minor who becomes a bishop. But both he and apparently most of the Christians, he's preaching to have a Jewish background, strongly Jewish, and they're relating, obviously perhaps more antithetically to the large Jewish congregations in Asia Minor at the time too. So there is a continued engagement. The Church of Rome perhaps became among other things prominent because not only was it quite conservative, but many people would say that Conservative was rooted in the fact it was strongly Jewish in its origins, that his homes were in the Jewish synagogues and that it was respected. Therefore, not only because of Peter and Paul supposedly had died there, but it was very suspicious of innovations. This is the grand old way. We surprised that enemies of Rome later on accused of legalism, where did that come from? So you're saying the Church of Rome and the, the whole kind of organization of Catholicism around the Church of Rome is in part kind of continuous with the Jewishness of Jesus? I think. I think very much so. So John May, we we're speaking about the Jewishness of Jesus. Mm-hmm. But certainly. I mean, even if we're trying to just look at the historical Jesus, he, he wasn't a typical Jew. And I mean, there are certain elements of the gospels, which are rather extraordinary for how a typical Jew would've taught and thought and lived his life. Mm-hmm. So, and maybe you'd like to comment on that particular, um, anything maybe around the Sabbath or maybe something else. But I'd also like to begin to explore with you a little bit. The question of what we can really find that is reliable in the gospels is to try to fill out the life of the historical Jesus. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um, so we could turn to that, but I don't wanna forget also to speak about other sources outside of the gospels. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So maybe let's, I know I'm taking us on a windy path, but maybe let's start with that. You know, are, are we stuck with the gospels or are there other things, other documents that can help us discover this Jesus. Well, I think certainly two important authors. One Jewish, one Roman Pagan, who, uh, give us, uh, at a STA independent attest station. Of, uh, basic facts about the historical Jesus are on the one hand, the great Jewish historian Josephus, who was born sometimes around 37, somewhere around there, and lived to probably past the year a hundred long lived person. And he is our major source of knowing what in the world went on in Palestine in the first century without Josephus. We are very much in the dark, to a great degree, uh, enormous output. And his last lawyer, huge work, 20 books called The Antiquities, which is really the entire history of Judaism. He, as he sees it, from the creation onwards down to the beginning of the outbreak of the first Jewish war, which he treated earlier on in a separate book, the Jewish War, and in. Two places in the antiquities. He mentions Jesus one time ever so quickly blinking. You miss him the second time, a sort of thumbnail sketch of who he was the first time. As I say, just it's that later on, somewhere around 62, a high priest that Josephus doesn't like law. An an II has all his enemies killed while the Roman governor is away, and one of them is Jacob. That is James. The brother of Jesus, who is called Christos Messiah, anointed one, as I say, blink and you miss it.'cause obviously this is not terribly important, but we just had to identify who these people were. But intriguingly, that can't be a Christian. Addition or, uh, even influenced by Christians because what Josephus says is totally different from both the time, the year, and the manner in which Jacob was killed. So it's an independent, and this is the important thing, that it's not inserted later on by Christians or it's not that Josephus didn't learn it from Christians. He knew about. Christians in Rome. So, so maybe that's sort of the key that lets us affirm emphatically that Jesus existed. He not, yes. Virginia wasn't Jesus. Uh, but then the more important one is, uh, book 18. And there is a problem there because it does seem, because all this was transmitted later on by Christian scribes, all of this meaning Joseph, uh, Joseph's Josephus and philo of Alexander as well. And it would seem, I would claim there are interestingly three insertions. Into a text that otherwise is perfectly intelligible by a Jew writing about another Jew. But the Christian scribes, no doubt were inflamed because it didn't mention any idea of Jesus' divinity. There was no mention of his being a messiah. No mention of resurrection and intriguingly. Those seem to be. The three insertions because suddenly the language syntax, grammar of Josephus suddenly changes only in those passages. Otherwise, the syntax and the grammar are perfectly josephus. And what he tells us ever so briefly is at the time of punches, Pilate, he swam by punches Pilate there arose this particular wise man, so force on there, wise man phrase never used of Jesus in New Testament. He's never called, called Why other people are, uh, that he was a teacher. Of people who delight in the truth, which in Josephus Greek is an ambiguous statement. Maybe actually they, they're suckers who are sucked in. But also that he was a doer of astounding deeds, which he uses elsewhere for a miracle worker. So intriguing. It's Josephus who's saying he was a miracle worker, but. And he says, which is anachronistic Josephus is wrong there, that Joseph, that Jesus attracted equal numbers of Jew and Gentile followers, totally full. Jesus doesn't. Go near any Gentile during his public ministry, a few come to him, but there's no mission to the Gentile. That's Josephus looking out his window in 90 ad in Rome's already kind of the first historian of Christianity is kind of already reading Christianity in Gentile terms. And then in he says, but uh, Pilate. Ac, the accusation of some leading among, among us had him crucified. Now notice, of course, it's pilot who's responsible. That's very interesting. And the only Jewish involvement is certain elites who bring an accusation to pil. Now, the whole tendency of early Christianity was, of course, exonerate Pilate. He's a saint in the Coptic Church. And, uh, of course it's all the fault of the Jews. Instead, uh, it's totally opposite in Josephus. And then omitting the business about resurrection. Josephus ends by saying, and the tribe of Christians, that has not died out yet, even to this day because Josephus thinks who wants to worship a crucified man? They should have died out long ago. But he says, but those who had previously loved him did not cease to do so. Mm-hmm. Again, totally. He never uses the word disciple or apostle, which is the way testament, but those who had previously loved him. Did not cease to do again, totally un-Christian phrase. Well, as we sort of move towards a conclusion, I, I did wanna address the question of faith. Of course, in minding scripture, we're interested in the interplay between reason, scripture and faith. Mm-hmm. And of course, you're a Catholic, but also. A critical scholar, an academic scholar of the historical Jesus. So how, how can these two things go together? Do they go together for you or do you sort of keep your life of faith and your life of scholarship separate? I'd say it's rather an organic process that goes through two stages, two distinct stages. The first stage, I think, considering that so many books on the historical of Jesus have been bent. Distorted by the ideology or the commitment of the author, either for Faith Against Faith, and really the books you can just see everything is ordered. So we will reach this conclusion at the end. So in order to avoid that. And to indeed granted postmodern, everybody has their particular viewpoint to try to put on guardrails as much as possible. I imagine this unpayable conclave where a Catholic, Protestant, Jew. Atheist Muslim. All first class historical scholars are locked in the basement of the Harvard Divinity School and not allowed to come out until they hammer out a white paper where they agree about what can you say about Jesus purely on historical grounds and reasoning from the material we have, but, and then where do we get to faith? And then. I think the critical correlation or putting thing, trying to have two sides talk to each other is when you finish that first stage. Then in the, and this would be very interesting, having the same group actually start talking about, okay, uh, with this agreement. What does this say to my, either faith or lack of faith? How does it interact or not interact at all? And that's where I think, for instance, a Catholic at that point would start talking about indeed what? In fact, I would put it very part what instead of conflict, what does this historical quest contribute? Hm, to my understanding of faith, and one thing I always point out right away, and I said it could have wiped out the whole ghastly history of antisemitism at the Catholic Church. If people had realized this from the beginning, that John's great affirmation of faith in Christ in the beginning was the word, the Son of God, eternal praise and the word became flesh and dwell among us. Well, what flesh is that? And I think the great. Emphasis of the story. It is not generic human flesh. It's not just first. It is a first century Jew that eternal word becomes and the only access to the revelation he has, therefore, and who he is, is through the Jew that he is right, and indeed intriguingly, for all to talk about the antisemitism of John's gospel. The only gospel that caused Jesus a Jew directly is John's gospel intriguingly. Or even also the discussion earlier about Josephus as a source. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Kind of highlights the Roman role in the crucifixion. Mm-hmm. Also would seem to be kind of a place where, um. A recovery of the historical Jesus. Yes, yes. Uh, would enable, uh, kind of a distancing from traditional antisemitism. And Sist really does the same thing. He doesn't even mention the Jews involved in the death of Jesus. It's under the emperor Tiberius punches Pilate, he says pro, which is right. You can see he's not getting it from the Christians. The New Testament doesn't make that mistake. Uh, the procurator at the time had him crucified. Well, that's a, a nice note to end with as we move towards more harmony. And we demonstrate how research can lead to that increased harmony between different faiths. In our next episode of minding scripture, we're gonna continue our exploration of Jesus, but in that occasion, from a Muslim perspective, thank you John Meyer. My pleasure. Thank you, John. Thank you very much. Friends. Thank you for joining us and be sure to be with us for our next episode of Mining Scripture, where divine word and human reason meet.