Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

FAITH AND THE HISTORICAL JESUS §5.4
teristic emphases both of ancient Judaism and of the early Church' , 68 The point
was not that only sayings which satisfied this criterion should be recognized as
authentic, but rather that such sayings will be the only ones we can know to be
genuine. 69 Perrin backed up this first criterion with a second, 'the criterion of coherence',
70 and with some hesitation a third, 'the criterion of multiple attestation'.
71 As the discussion of criteria broadened out beyond the confines of the
new quest properly so called, others have been offered, not necessarily as alternatives,
but in addition. For example, Jeremias in effect offered the criterion of
characteristic style traceable back to Aramaic forms; 72 J. P. Meier has given
some prominence to 'the criterion of embarrassment'; 73 Theissen (with Dagmar
Winter) presses the criterion of historical plausibility; 74 Georg Strecker argues
for the 'criterion of development'; 75 Stephen Patterson suggests the criterion of
memorability; 76 and Stanley Porter has put forward the triple criteria of Greek
language and context, Greek textual variance, and discourse features. 77
Few, however, are wholly satisfied with these criteria. If the criterion of
dissimilarity is applied consistently, and only that material is added which coheres
with the limited findings of the first trawl through the Jesus tradition, then
the historical Jesus who emerges is bound to be a strange creature, with anything
which links him to the religion of his people or to the teaching of his followers
automatically ruled out of court, 'a unique Jesus in a vacuum'. 78 Besides, as
68. Perrin, Rediscovering 39.
69. R. S. Barbour, Traditio-Historical Criticism of the Gospels (London: SPCK, 1972).
70. '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'
(Rediscovering 43).
71. '. . . authentic material which is attested in all, or most, of the sources which can be
discerned behind the synoptic gospels' (Rediscovering 45); see further Porter, Criteria 82-89.
72. Jeremias, Proclamation Part One. See also M. Casey, Aramaic Sources of Mark's
Gospel (SNTSMS 102; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1998); also 'An Aramaic Approach
to the Synoptic Gospels', ExpT 110 (1999) 275-78.
73. J. P. Meier, The Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus Vol. One (New York:
Doubleday, 1991) 168-71.
74. G. Theissen and D. Winter, Die Kriterienfrage in der Jesusforschung: Vom
Differenzkriterium zum Plausibilitätskriterium (Freiburg: Universitätsverlag, 1997) 175-217;
also G. Theissen, 'Historical Scepticism and the Criteria of Jesus Research', SJT 49 (1996)
147-76. Cf. A. E. Harvey, Jesus and the Constraints of History (London: Duckworth, 1982).
75. G. Strecker, Theology of the New Testament (1996; ET Berlin: De Gruyter, 2000)
251.
76. S. J. Patterson, The God of Jesus: The Historical Jesus and the Search for Meaning
(Harrisburg: Trinity, 1998) 265-72 (here 269).
77. Porter, Criteria Part II.
78. E. Schillebeeckx, Jesus: An Experiment in Christology (1974; ET London: Collins,
1979) 94.
82