The Historical Christ and the Theological Jesus (review)

Biblical scholar Dale C. Allison Jr. sets out in this book—originally delivered in 2008 as the Kenneth W. Clark Lectures at Duke University—to tease out the theological significance of the so-called Quest of the Historical Jesus. Modern advocates such as the late Robert Funk draw a straight line from historical enquiry to a critique of traditional Christian claims, whereas a previous generation of theologians, including Tillich and Barth, argued for its irrelevance. Allison rejects both extremes. Although the quest is “profoundly ambiguous,” he contends, it cannot be dismissed as “a contemporary nuisance, a passing inconvenience” (8).

Allison’s argument unfolds in two major movements. Chapters 1 and 2 detail a number of the difficulties of drawing theological insight from the historical study of Jesus, in terms reminiscent of Luke Timothy Johnson and other biblical scholars critical of the quest. On the one hand, there are problems with the historical project itself, which suffers from a paucity of direct evidence and the inevitable subjectivity of reconstruction. “If we are to do something with the historical Jesus,” he writes, “it will have to be someone’s particular historical Jesus” (11), and theologians tend to choose among the many, diverse, and mutually contradictory portraits by what Allison calls a method of “attraction” or “similar ideological inclinations” (21) rather than from the historical evidence itself. On the other hand, there are also problems with reducing knowledge of Jesus to historical knowledge. Personal identity is not easily separated from the perceptions of others, including especially the biblical authors, but neither can it be simply reduced to these authors’ original intention. These issues become still more complex if one grants, as Allison does, even the conditional validity of “firsthand experience” of Jesus (48) through the life of discipleship, elevated spiritual experiences, and/or acts of love and service.

In chapters 3–5, Allison becomes more specific, outlining his own particular approach to the historical Jesus and drawing some few, scattered theological insights from it. In content, he stands explicitly in the tradition of First Questers Johannes Weiss and Albert Schweitzer, concluding that “whether we like it or not, the historical Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet” (91). In method, he perhaps stands closer to Ernst Troeltsch, privileging the general outline and impressions offered by the sources as a whole over particular strands or layers deemed most authentic. Unlike contemporary interpreters like N.T. Wright, the coherence of this holistic image does not lend historical weight to any of its constituent parts. It can, however, chasten the claims of orthodoxy and encourage “theological humility” (103) on the part of any interpreter. More than this, it can inspire theologians to perceive in Jesus a living incarnation of what Allison calls the “eschatological pattern” (117) in his preaching and in his own person. “By announcing not only tribulation present and coming but also salvation present and coming and then by living into both, Jesus commends himself to us” (119).

Given what Allison suggests about the “method of attraction,” it may come as no surprise that this reader—theologian rather than biblical scholar, student of apocalyptic eschatology—finds his argument sensible, convincing, and helpful. It is rare to find a scholar who can write appreciably and draw insights from such apparent irreconcilables as John Dominic Crossan and N.T. Wright without thereby endorsing all (or many) of their conclusions. Allison clearly takes a position in the midst of the struggle, not above it, and this lends credibility to his claims. If the book suffers at all, it is from its unwillingness to venture further than it does. One wonders why Allison does not explicitly engage the comparable projects of Johnson, already mentioned, or of feminist theorists such as Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza. More difficult, from the theological point of view, is the lack of any sustained consideration of those well-established theologians who have tried to make sense of Jesus precisely as...