The Theological Relevance of the Historical Jesus: A Debate and A Thesis

THE THEOLOGICAL RELEVANCE OF THE HISTORICAL JESUS: A DEBATE AND A THESIS Introduction: The Recent Past as Historical Context for the Question IN AN EARLY STAGE of his theological investigating, Karl Rahner surveyed the state of the then current christology and found cause to bemoan its lack of vitality, using a most interesting standard: " How few really living and passionate controversies there are in Catholic christology today which engage the existential concern of the faithful (is there a single one ?) ." 1 In his judgment, one of the primary reasons for christology's stagnation was the lack of noteworthy influence exercised by modern biblical theology upon the farmer's traditional neo-scholastic structure and content. According to the teaching of the Church, the Scriptures are the inexhaustible source of truth about Christ, but " is this conviction noticeable as an active force and holy disquiet in the ordinary practice of christology today ? " 2 Rather than incorporate the new knowledge surfacing in the biblical :field, dogmatic christology seemed content simply to go on as before, quoting certain Scripture texts which were necessary to prove theses already laid down in advance. Nor was dogmatic christology doing justice to the best of its own tradition as embodied in Aquinas, Suarez, and others, for it showed little interest in Christ's life-his baptism, his prayer, his concrete passion and abandonment by God on the cross, leaving these Scriptural "mysteries" to the considerations of piety. What remained of christology was a pallid version of its former self. 1" Current Problems in Christology," Theological Investigations I, tr. C. Ernst (Baltimore: Helicon Press, 1961), 152. 2 Ibid., 155. 1 ELIZABETH A. JOHNSON, c.s.J. Rather than yield to discouragement in the face of such inertia , Rahner committed himself to the hope that Scripture studies could and would contribute renewing power to the prevalent neo-scholastic christology. In an eerily prescient remark he prophesied: Let no one say that nothing more is really possible in this field any longer. Something is possible, because something must be possible, if it is a matter of the inexhaustible riches of God's presence with us ...3 It was not until over a decade later, when Roman Catholic biblical scholarship was firmly validated by the Second Vatican Council (and when among Protestant exegetes the 'new quest' for the historical Jesus was already well launched), that insights and questions from the biblical perspective began to penetrate this quiescent christology.4 The first wave of discussion , generated by recognition of the genuine differences between biblical and prevailing Catholic christology, treated the issue under the rubric of the tension between exegesis and dogmatic theology, the latter understood as the christology of the s Op. cit. 4 For a sketch of the history and for summaries of the major documents of the Roman Catholic Church on biblical study during the last century, see T. A. Collins and R. Brown," Church Pronouncements," Jerome Biblical Commentary II (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1968), 624-632. The classic survey and assessment of the 'old quest' is Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus: A Critical Study of its Progress from Reimarus to Wrede, tr. W. Montgomery (N.Y.: Macmillan, 1961). The 'new quest ' was intiated by Ernst Kasemann's lecture, "The Problem of the Historical Jesus," Essays on New Testament Themes, tr. Vv. Montague (Naperville , Ill.: Alec. R. Allenson, Inc., 1964), 15-47, and its principles delineated clearly by James Robinson, A New Quest for the Historical Jesiis (London: SCM Press Ltd., 1959). For an eminently readable summary and evaluation of the 'old quest', see James Mackey, Jesus-the Man and the Myth (N.Y.: Paulist Press, 1979), 10-51. For one synopsis of the life of Jesus research, cf. Gustaf Aulen, Jesus in Contemporary Historical Research, tr. I. Hjelm (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976). For an excellent discussion of the whole issue from Reimarus to the new questers (including annotated bibliography ), see Norman Perrin, Rediscovering the '.l'eaching of Jesus (NY.: Harper and Row, 1967), 207-48, 262-66. THE HISTORICAL JESUS 3 manuals." Indeed there was tension, for biblical scholarship, in spite of its variety of approaches and plethora of disputed issues, had enough of...