Gospel Narrative and the Jesus of History: Where Should Christology Begin?

Abstract

The prevailing tendency to make a reconstruction of the historical life of Jesus the starting point for christology runs into two serious difficulties. First, such reconstructions vary greatly among themselves and are largely precarious in what they claim to know about Jesus. Secondly, resting upon the historical-critical method, the adequacy of which in theological terms has now come into serious question, they fail to do justice to the narrative quality of the gospels, which resists simple reduction to history. This article critically surveys the work of Hans Frei, George Lindbeck, David Kelsey, Luke Timothy Johnson and Francis Watson and formulates seven principles attempting to state the appropriate relationship between the gospels and history with regard to christology. It concludes that the starting point for christology must be the canonical gospels. Four related issues are addressed at the end: first the openness of a text to multiple meaning; then three concerns arising, respectively, out of liberation theology, feminist interpretation, and the anti-Jewish slant of the gospels.