The Theory Behind the Story: How Peter Jennings Used Funk, Spong, and Crossan to Build His Own Jesus

The Theory Behind the Story:
How Peter Jennings Used Funk, Spong, and Crossan to Build His Own Jesus

I watched with interest the three-hour ABC special, “Jesus and Paul – The Word and the Witness”, expecting Peter Jennings to conclude that Saul of Tarsus was the inventor of Christianity, and that he had irrevocably changed Jesus’ message. Knowing that such liberal scholars and writers as John Dominic Crossan, Marcus Borg, and Bishop John Shelby Spong would be featured, I was prepared to listen to the counter-intuitive surprises they often bring to such shows. What I found instead was a much more balanced presentation than I had any right to expect. This is especially the case because the conservatives he interviewed could have been quoted making much more conservative statements, and the liberals quoted often make much more liberal statements. Instead the careful selection of quotes brought both sides closer to the middle, but, sadly, not necessarily to produce a picture of Jesus, Paul, and Christianity that was much closer to the truth.

Con and Pro

When Robert Funk told us that Judas was a made-up character meant to symbolize Judaism itself, a “cruel” fiction, only to be followed by Bishop Spong’s confident assertion that “Judas” just means “Jew” – who would have expected Crossan to be the one to correct this, pointing out that Judah (translated Judas) was a very common name, and that someone close to Jesus betrayed him?

And when Funk speculated that there probably was no trial, and that the Romans were solely responsible for Jesus’ execution, it was no other than Marcus Borg who provided the corrective statement that it was “most likely” than a “narrow circle” of Jewish leaders were collaborators with the Romans.

When the charge of anti-semitism inevitably came to light, the conclusion was that almost all scholars – liberal and conservative – thought this to be a gross misreading of Paul’s letters.

Crossan’s now-famous claim that Jesus was probably never buried was followed by no less than three scholars concluding that the disciples must have seen or experienced something, with N.T. Wright’s contention that the resurrection of Jesus is the only good explanation for the existence of Christianity put forward in a prominent way.

Specific Criticisms

I have these specific criticisms of the show:

1. The sound-bite nature of the presentation produced an odd effect. A serious claim, such as “Jesus never directly said he was the Messiah in the Bible” just pops up out of nowhere, is not really discussed, is not supported by any evidence, and vanishes. The Gospel of Thomas is inexplicably trotted out, without any discernable connection to the show’s theme, but then they move on.

2. The contention is made several times that Paul and the early Christians thought that the end of the world was coming within a few years, and that this (obviously mistaken) notion was at the root of Paul’s message. N.T. Wright has argued strenuously that this is just not the case. No one grappled with this issue – they only made pronouncements.

3. The emphasis on Paul’s contribution to the early church is to be expected, given the title of the show. However, Paul was not the only apostle to preach to the Gentiles, nor was he the only Christian teacher.

4. … which brings up my greatest disappointment – the theme, running throughout the Paul section, of his “running battle” with the disciples. The common agreement with James, Peter, and the rest are minimized, and the one known conflict with Peter blown up into an overall adversarial relationship. I got the impression from the show (I don’t know if they actually said this) that the Judaizers who battled Paul were the disciples or their surrogates.

Discontinuity?

And I have this problem with the presentation in general: There is, still, an underlying assumption running throughout the show, of a discontinuity between the historical Jesus and his followers (highlighting, of course, Paul.

Why is this? Why do they think there is a discontinuity? The answer is the same as the answer to this question, Why is there a search for the “historical Jesus”? The liberal scholars I listed above believe there is a fundamental discontinuity between all of the New Testament, including the gospels, and the man Jesus as he really was.

But a deeper, and more interesting question immediately follows: Just why is it that the gospels don’t tell the truth about Jesus? Is it that they were written so long after the events that the authors didn’t know any better? Is it that they just made stuff up to create their own religion, knowing it was a lie?

The Metaphorical Gospel Theory

The answer, to many scholars, is none of the above. They contend, rather, that the authors of the gospel accounts never intended many of their stories to be taken factually – rather, these were stories they told in order to convey deep spiritual truth. Bishop John Shelby Spong stated this more clearly than most, in his book Born of a Woman:

"As I sought to explain this biblical background, my friends around the room looked increasingly incredulous. 'You mean', one of them said, 'that maybe these things did not actually happen?'

'No', I suggested. 'What we have in the Gospels is an interpretive narrative based on an earlier part of the tradition and designed to enable the reader to see the reality of God in Jesus and to be drawn to this reality in faith.'

'This means', my questioner continued, 'that you are saying that Luke was lying. He told these things as if they were true when he knew they were not!'

The luncheon would not be long enough to address these issues, I thought to myself in despair. This woman believed that the Gospels were something like a television documentary or a researched biography. She knew nothing about the style of writing that was in vogue in the Jewish world when the Gospels were written." (Born of a Woman p 17-18)

In John Dominic Crossan’s autobiography A Long Way from Tipperary, he tells us:

"We began [with the Enlightenment] to think that ancient peoples ("other" peoples) told dumb, literal stories that we were no smart enough to recognize as such. Not quite. Those ancient people told smart, metaphorical stories that we were now dumb enough to take literally." p 148

And in his Westar web article, “Almost the Whole Truth - an Odyssey", he is clear enough, at:

http://www.westarinstitute.org/Periodicals/4R_Articles/Crossan_bio/crossan_bio.html

“The last chapters of the gospels and the first chapters of Acts taken literally, factually, and historically trivialize Christianity and brutalize Judaism. That acceptation has created in Christianity a lethal deceit that sours its soul, hardens its heart, and savages its spirit. Although the basis of all religion and, indeed, of all human life is mythological, based on acts of fundamental faith incapable of proof or disproof, Christianity often asserts that its faith is based on fact not interpretation, history not myth, actual event not supreme fiction. And because I am myself a Christian, I have a responsibility to do something about it."

I remember the day I first read Spong’s claim, saying to myself, “At last! Somebody has just come right out and said it!” All the stuff that was implicit in Bultmann, all the dancing around the topic you’d see in the redaction critics, finally was made concrete, simple, and straightforward. I looked for a book that would address this specific issue in a logical, straightforward way. I wanted to see a book that said, “Here is the internal and external evidence that conclusively refutes the Metaphorical Gospel Theory, and here’s exactly why it does.

There may be such a book, but I never found it. So I corresponded a bit with Marcus Borg and Bishop Spong, trying to clarify their views. Then I worked through the issue myself, over a long period. Here’s what I found out.

The MG Theory

The Metaphorical Gospel theory states, in a nutshell:

1. The New Testament writers did not intend to portray many of the stories, and the claims about Jesus' deity and resurrection, as "factually" true. Instead, they intended to portray them as (only) metaphorically true.

2. This way of telling stories was common practice at the time, and the original readers and hearers of the New Testament typically understood the stories and claims to be metaphorically, but not factually, true.

3. It was only a later generation that "literalized" the gospel.

“Definiteness of Articulation”

The biggest hurdle for me was caused by the vague, illogical, or convoluted ways in which writers expressed the MG view. I noticed that this was usually not a claim made explicitly, but rather an underlying assumption that permeated their statements about other things. Many writers, such as Borg and Spong, were attempted to show us how Christianity ought to be for the 21^st century, somehow for them it followed that this was also the original meaning of the New Testament documents.

The Internal Evidence

There is a Catch-22 involved in the examination of the internal evidence. Since the New Testament statements are presumed (by the MG theory) to be intended metaphorically, even straightforward assertions (“Jesus went to Bethany”) could possibly be just part of the story. It occurred to me that what we need are “meta-gospel” statements: statements in the gospels about the meaning and intention of the gospels. It was actually fun to scan through the New Testament, looking for something conclusive. Luke’s prologue is a good start. I found absolutely zero cases where a meta-gospel statement supported the MG Theory, and several where they contradicted it.

The External Evidence

Since part of the MG claim is that the original readers/hearers of the gospels and letters understood these metaphorically and not literally, it would be great if we could hear from some of them. And since part of the claim is that a later generation somehow “literalized” them, we should find out who the culprits were. Consider this:

First, we have actual letters from three 1^st century Christians (Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp of Smyrna – called the “Apostolic Fathers”); furthermore, each was associated closely with the one of the very communities assumed to have authored three of the gospels (Mark in Rome, Matthew in Antioch, John in Ephesus next door to Smyrna), and were leaders of these communities to boot. What did they think? They say that Jesus was really risen from the dead, that he was really God incarnate, and that these things really happened.

When it comes right down to it, no decent explanation of literalization process is provided. Bishop Spong tries but fails. Borg and Crossan don’t even deal with it. But this is a crucial issue - as in any apostasy theory. So far, no one has refuted the external evidence of the Ap Fathers – Spong and Borg admitted that they didn’t know enough to debate it.

To Learn More

I have written this up in detail at www.mgtheory.com. Answers in Action also has a mirror site.

Mark Allan Powell, current Chair of the Historical Jesus Section of the SBL, spotted my article on the internet, and gave me an extensive critique. My favorite comment was this:

“The MG Theory is an impressive work of scholarship that holds up to the standards of the guild. It is not the sort of piece that one expects to find posted on the web by “an amateur” who is unknown to those of us who are working in this field. Nelson does, of course, have some advanced theological training, but he is engaging PhD’s who devote themselves full-time to this sort of work, and who have done so for decades. Nevertheless, Nelson demonstrates that he understands the issues; he also exercises sound judgment, showing a commitment to critical thinking and to fair representation of his ideological opponents. Most important--and most impressive, to me--he makes at least one original contribution to the field: his sustained critique of Spong’s proposed scheme of “literalization” is of a caliber with what would usually be presented at one of our scholarly forums. Other scholars have noted that the scheme is a “weak point” in Spong’s argument and Spong himself has admitted that it isn’t fully developed, but Nelson appears to be the first to rebut the argument for such a scheme conclusively.”

Powell thought the external evidences were so compelling that he recently wrote an article dealing that, called “Authorial Intent and Historical Reporting: Putting Spong’s Literalization Thesis to the Test.” This was published in the Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus, Vol 1.2, June 2003. Here, Powell very nicely combines some of the external evidence with further arguments from narrative criticism.

Whether one is producing a slick documentary to support his own anti-supernatural bias as Jennings did in The Word and Worship or proposing one’s own understanding of the historical unreliability of the Bible as do the advocates of the Metaphorical Gospel, the bold facts of the evidence and the texts stands in the way.