One of Rooks best blogs so far….
That is a question that many scholars have attempted to answer. I have partially already explained why these answers have come up lacking. But I feel I need to write more extensively on why these answers misrepresent the intent of the narratives themselves. Was Mark really recounting a historical series of events through a screen of his own theological values? As I have already explained in my earlier article, no, he probably was not. But if the Gospels are not biographies or histories, just who is Jesus?
There are two well known positions, and then there is my position which exists as the underdog. But I don’t want to focus on my position just yet. First, let me present to you the two other, more widely held, positions on Jesus. Jesus is looked at as (1) just as the Gospels describe. Generally used by apologists, this position is what I have come to refer to as the “Historical Christ hypothesis”. The other position, (2) while it is dramatically more scholarly, still has many flaws and is the often referred to as the “Historical Jesus” hypothesis.
The historical Christ hypothesis is exactly what the name implies. Jesus, according to the perpetuators of this perspective, walked on water, calmed storms, healed the sick, preformed a vast amount of additional miracles like multiplying the loaves and turning water into wine, only to blow all of these other miracles away by resurrecting from the dead. Advocates for this position generally are not critical scholars, and hold positions at theological institutions, far from the realm of what I would consider to be honest scholarly opinions. Why do I say that? Because those who support this conclusion believe a man (1) walked on water, (2) calmed storms, (3) healed the sick, (4) preformed a vast amount of additional miracles like (5) multiplying the loaves and (6) turning water into wine, only to blow all of these other miracles away by (7) resurrecting from the dead. But it isn’t just the belief in these miracles which makes me really distrust this position. It is because that, in order to accept that Jesus is exactly as the Gospels says he is, you have to cherry pick verses. You have to pretend that some of the Gospel narratives just do not exist. How is that?