Historical Critical Method 4 - Criteria of Authenticity

At the conclusion of my last Blog entry, I mentioned Norman Perrin, an American who was one of Bultmann's last doctoral students. He had a prolific but short academic career at the University of Chicago until he died of a heart attack in 1976 at the age of 55. By all accounts, he was a driven scholar (who drove himself too hard). In his relatively short academic career he had an oversize impact on New Testament scholarship in the United States. This is no where more evident than in his book: Rediscovering the Teaching of Jesus, 1967.

In this book Perrin lays out what portion of the sayings of Jesus (he believes) can actually be traced back to Jesus himself. Perrin is really the first person to undertake this enterprise (with thoroughness) since the time his teacher Bultmann wrote The History of the Synoptic Tradition in 1921. But Perrin wanted to systematize the whole business. Perrin's research and writing on the sayings of Jesus (and in particular the overall message and teaching of Jesus) became very influential in New Testament scholarship in the United States, and consequently in Europe as well. Perrin lays out his plan in the preface: "The purpose of the book came to be to establish what may be known with reasonable certainty of the teaching of Jesus. To this end, every effort has been made to apply criteria strictly, and it has been accepted that the burden of proof always lies on the claim to authenticity" (pages 10-11).

This quotation is very important to keep in mind, as it represents assumptions held by every American historical critical scholar I know of. Anyone who disagrees with the assumptions in this quotation would probably not call him or herself an historical critical scholar.

From this quotation we see the formulation of an operating principle that is still at work among most historical critical scholars today. That principle is: Do not believe that a saying of Jesus in the Gospels was really spoken by Jesus, unless a strict application of the criteria of authenticity rule out every other possible explanation except that Jesus actually said it. Of course, such a narrow view of what may be admitted as "for certain" as going back to Jesus, means that there is much material in the Gospels that Jesus may well have spoken, but since we cannot be sure, it does not count in reconstructing our picture of the "authentic" teaching of Jesus. You might protest that such a narrow view of what may be considered truly having come from Jesus probably does not give us an accurate picture of who Jesus really was and what he actually taught. This is because there may be much in the Gospels that goes back to Jesus but does not pass the rigid test of the criteria of authenticity, and you would have a valid complaint. But the majority of historical critical scholars would state that we have to be absolutely certain of the authenticity of a saying or action of Jesus in reconstructing the life of Jesus to maintain academic integrity in one's scholarship. But you may protest that such a position may be a convenient ruse to avoid having to take seriously the sayings of Jesus that one does not agree with. Whether such a complaint is valid or not, I will leave that to your judgment as you work your way through the textbooks in this class.

The reason this book, Rediscovering the Teaching of Jesus is so important in the history of New testament scholarship is that this is the first time that someone has attempted to formulate and articulate the vague and often undefined criteria scholars were using in deciding whether or not Jesus actually said a certain saying. For someone who is inclined to believe that Jesus probably said everything attributed to him in the Gospels, this whole enterprise will seem like a waste of time. But for the development of the historical critical method, it was a momentous step.

Perrin begins by noting some widely accepted operating assumptions of historical critical scholars of his time. Here are the two most important ones. 1) "Any and every saying in the gospels could be the product of an evangelist [meaning the gospel's author] or transmitter of the tradition. Nor can we assume that the sayings [of Jesus found in the Gospels] will be based upon genuine sayings of Jesus" (page20). 2) "Any parable as it now stands in the gospels represents the teaching of the early Church and the way back from the early Church to the historical Jesus is a long and arduous one" (page 21). What Perrin proposes to do is provide scholars with specific criteria that will lead them down that arduous road back to the historical Jesus.

Perrin writes: "Thus we reach the fundamental criterion for authenticity upon which all reconstructions of the teaching of Jesus must be built, which we propose to call the 'criterion of dissimilarity'. ... The earliest form of a saying we can reach may be regarded as authentic if it can be shown to be dissimilar to characteristic emphases both of ancient Judaism and of the early Church" (page 39).

This means if a saying attributed to Jesus has overtones that better fit the situation of the early Christians as an organization than the unorganized format of Jesus' ministry, Jesus probably did not say it. Or, if a saying is attributed to Jesus that would better fit the needs of his followers in identifying Jesus as having special standing with God or divine prerogatives, such as the need for early Christians to believe and convince others that Jesus is God's "Anointed One" (Messiah in Aramaic, Christ in Greek), the Son of God, Lord, the savior, the redeemer, all these are more important to the early Christians in spreading the message about Jesus than the focus of Jesus' earthly ministry. Therefore, such statements that give a divine title to Jesus most likely were never spoken by Jesus. A saying of Jesus that counts as authentic by reason of dissimilarity can have no common ground with concerns that were especially important to the early Christians after Jesus' death, or especially important to the Judaism into which he was born. The unspoken goal here is to find that which is truly unique in the sayings of Jesus.

Perrin writes: "With the criterion of dissimilarity as our starting point, ... we propose a second criterion, which we will call 'the criterion of coherence': material from the earliest strata of the tradition may be accepted as authentic if it can be shown to cohere with material established as authentic by means of the criterion of dissimilarity" (page 43).

What Perrin means by coherence is that if a saying does not strictly pass the test of dissimilarity, but seems to cohere (hangs together) with a saying that does pass the test of dissimilarity, due to a similar meaning or import of its message, then it can be counted as authentic. In practice many scholars have used this criterion to admit sayings of Jesus that do not pass the test of dissimilarity, but that they really want to believe Jesus said because it fits their personal view of the reconstructed message of Jesus. An excellent example of this is Borg (page 179) talking about the parable of the Sheep and Goats.

Perrin writes: "Before leaving the question of criteria, we must make mention of a further one: the criterion of multiple attestation. This is a proposal to accept as authentic material which is attested in all, or most, of the sources which can be discerned behind the synoptic gospels. ... This criterion does have a usefulness in terms of establishing the authenticity of motifs from the ministry of Jesus, though rarely that of specific sayings. ... So, for example, we may accept the authenticity of Jesus' special concern for 'tax collectors and sinners', which certainly has multiple attestation in this sense" (pages 45-46).

Multiple attestation is most often used by scholars when something can be shown to exist in both Mark and Q or Q and M or L, or Mark and L or M. Not a lot falls into this category that does not fit also as authentic by one or the other of the two aforementioned criteria, but it can be useful.

Borg mentions coherence and multiple attestation (Borg, page 70). Ehrman, chapter 6, does a good job of explaining what the criteria of authenticity are all about. But he only specifically mentions dissimilarity. What Ehrman calls "contextual credibility" is really only a rough common sense application of the criterion of dissimilarity. All the examples Ehrman gives are from the Gospel of John which all historical critical scholars believe (as a fundamental operating premise) that John is much more interested in the theological meaning of Jesus than the historical life of Jesus. This is what is behind passages in the textbooks that mention the example of John changing the date of Jesus' crucifixion so that it coincides with the time of the slaughter of the Passover lambs at the Jewish temple.

There is a Fourth criterion that is worth knowing and that is the criterion of Embarrassment (I believe this term was first coined by the Dutch scholar Schillebeeckx). This refers to events that would naturally be an embarrassment to the early Christians, and therefore no reason to include them in the Gospels unless they were so much a part of the historical record that they could not be avoided and must be mentioned. The best example is the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist. Ehrman mentions this under dissimilarity, but it fits much better under embarrassment. Of course, the crucifixion of Jesus also fits this category, but no credible scholar I know of doubts the reality of Jesus' death by crucifixion.