Block 3 - Fredriksen, Pages 74-119

In this section Fredriksen begins by exploring the crucifixion of Jesus because this is a point of fact agreed upon by all traditions that treat the life and story of Jesus. When she mentions at the bottom of page 75, "Those who take certain strata of Q as the core historical material for Jesus," she is specifically referring to the Jesus Seminar, and no doubt, John Dominic Crossan in particular. Obviously she does not believe this interpretation of Jesus provides a reasonable explanation for why Pilate would want to execute Jesus. Fredriksen proposes that in order to make sense of Jesus as a historical person, it is necessary to find some causal connections between his "mission," his death, and the subsequent Jesus movement (page 77, top). But she is not going to tell us her answer to this question until much later in her book. Her methodology is to approach the task in reverse; go to the earliest extant (meaning still in existence) accounts of the Jesus movement, which are the letters of the Apostle Paul in the New Testament. This is assuming that the Gospels were not written until 20 or 30 years later.

Following this approach, Fredriksen begins with an examination of the earliest writing in the New Testament, Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians (composed about 50 CE), to discover what may be known from this writing about the historical Jesus. What is most obvious about 1 Thessalonians is the expectation of a soon to occur dramatic and glorious return of Jesus to earth. And so this is where she begins. This might seem like an odd approach to someone who is writing about the historical Jesus, but it is all part of Fredriksen's attempt to be rigorous in her methodology. She wants to present to the reader what this writing says about Jesus. It would appear that this is more about Paul than Jesus. But her intent is to show that the earliest interest in Jesus (as it would appear from Paul's letters) is on the cosmic Jesus who is soon to reappear on earth, not his earlier earthly ministry.

Lying behind this discussion are some assumptions held by most historical critical scholars. First, that earliest Christianity was preoccupied with the expectation of Jesus' return, thus why Paul writes so much about it in 1 Thessalonians. Secondly, when that did not happen as quickly as expected it precipitated the need to reconsider the issue. That is why some scholars will use the "delay of the parousia" as a crisis of faith for these Christians ("parousia" is the Greek word that Paul uses to refer to the expected reappearance of Jesus on earth). This delayed appearance then causes a reconsideration of the issue which results in statements that people should not expect the end to be soon. A good example of this is the belief by such scholars that some early Christians created the parable of the Talents and put it in the mouth of Jesus as a way of explaining the "delay." A problem I see with this approach is that while some Thessalonian Christians are concerned about the fact that Jesus did not appear before some Christians died, it does not seem to me that there is any place in Paul's letters that he, Paul, is at all concerned about Jesus being later than expected, or worried why Jesus has not appeared. It may be reading too much into 1 Thessalonians to surmise that Paul was just as sure Jesus would appear "any day now" as the Thessalonian Christians seemed to have believed. But there is no question, but that, indeed, most early Christians expected Jesus to return sometime for the final salvation of believers and the final judgment of unbelievers.

In her discussion of the apocalyptic themes in Mark 13 (pages 83-88), Fredriksen seems to imply that she believes that the apocalyptic beliefs so prominent in Paul's letters have been retrojected back onto the earthly Jesus by early Christians who were sure that Jesus believed just as they did. However, she also seems to believe that Jesus' teaching must have had some apocalyptic content. This becomes clearer in the discussion of the tradition of Jesus' resurrection appearances.

Ehrman makes a very interesting point that in order to believe that Jesus rose from the dead, one would have to believe such a thing is possible, and in the Judaism of Jesus' time, the only people who believed such a thing were those with apocalyptic expectations. And so Fredriksen discusses Paul's list of the resurrection appearances, as he had received it from the apostles in Jerusalem (page 90 and following). Some scholars have suggested that this list of appearances is more about apostolic authority than resurrections, in that Paul is establishing himself as equal to the original 12 in his ability to speak for Jesus. Perhaps this may be part of Paul's point in recounting it in 1 Corinthians 15, but it does confirm for us a tradition about Jesus' resurrection.

On page 94 top when Fredriksen mentions "as some scholars have recently argued" that theory that Jesus was focused on reforming society, she is referring specifically to Borg and Crossan. It is interesting that she does so in the context of why did the Jesus movement relocate to Jerusalem after the resurrection? On pages 95-98 it would seem that Fredriksen is finally getting around to making her point. There is much of the behavior of the early Christians that makes perfect sense if it is understood under the umbrella of "Jewish apocalyptic expectation." In such thinking, Jerusalem is where the action will take place. This is still true at the end of the first century in the book of Revelation, where the much of the important action will take place in Jerusalem. Likewise, the mission to the nations (Gentiles) in early Christianity (Paul and numerous others), fits into the same framework in which God's redemptive activity will reach out to the non-Jews (Gentiles) in the end times. Same with the mention of the "Twelve" disciples/apostles. Some scholars (and this seems to include Fredriksen) believe the tradition of the "Twelve" definitely goes back to Jesus and is based on the expectation that in the end times God will bring about the restoration of the twelve tribes of Israel. This seems the best explanation for the tradition of the "Twelve" in the New Testament, even though the Gospels do no all have the same names on their lists. But the fact that mention of the "Twelve" occurs in a variety of places in the New Testament would indicate that it is a well ingrained part of the Jesus tradition and only makes sense in the context of apocalyptic expectations.

Thus, it would seem to me that from what Fredriksen says about the places where Paul mentions information directly related to the earthly Jesus that she believe such traditions do have a high probability of authenticity, and that they would indicate that the early traditions about Jesus had a strong apocalyptic dimension and that this ultimately must have derived from Jesus himself. Even if the exact wording of many statements in the Gospels attributed to Jesus did not originate with Jesus, the ideas were voiced in some form by Jesus and he must have held to many of the basic apocalyptic expectations of Judaism of his time,and even (in some cases) put his own personal twist on them (such as with the "Twelve").