Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

FAITH AND THE HISTORICAL JESUS §6.5
the beginnings of Christianity, about the character and impact of a mission which
transformed fishermen and toll-collectors into disciples and apostles? In terms of
pivotal individuals on whom the history of the world has turned, it is the latter in
whom we are most interested. And the Synoptic tradition is precisely what we
need for the task.
f. When Did Faith Begin?
The significance of the step being advocated here, therefore, should not be
missed. For it is tantamount to asserting that faith goes back to the very origins of
the Jesus tradition, that the Jesus tradition emerged from the very first as the expression
of faith. In so saying I do not mean that the tradition was formulated
only in the light of Easter faith, as Wrede and the kerygmatic theologians have
assumed. I am referring to the first stirrings of faith which constituted the initial,
pre-Easter disciple-response. I am asserting that the teaching and events of Jesus'
ministry did not suddenly become significant in the light of Easter — much more
significant, no doubt, as various markers in the Gospels indicate, 114 but not significant
for the first time. 115 The suggestion that the remembered Jesus was
wholly insignificant, unfascinating and unintriguing, having no real impact prior
to his death and resurrection, is simply incredible. Peter and the others did not
first become disciples on Easter day. There was already a response of faith, already
a bond of trust, inspired by what they first and subsequently heard and saw
Jesus say and do. Not yet explicitly faith in Jesus, but the Evangelists do not hesitate
to describe the disciples' pre-Easter response to Jesus in terms of faith. 116
Only so can we explain how the Jesus tradition is so rich and full as it is —
hardly the deposit of casual and vague memories first jerked into faith by Easter.
In short, the tension between faith and history has too often been seen as destructive
of good history. On the contrary, however, it is the recognition that Jesus can
be perceived only through the impact he made on his first disciples (that is, their
faith) which is the key to a historical recognition (and assessment) of that impact.
Whether that key works and how well it works are matters for further exploration
in chapter 8.
114. E.g., Mark 9.9; John 2.22.
115. As E. Lohse, 'Die Frage nach dem historischen Jesus in der gegenwärtigen
neutestamentlichen Forschung', Die Einheit des Neuen Testaments (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck
und Ruprecht, 1973) 29-48, points out, it is the Evangelists themselves who insist that 'the "beginning"
of the gospel lies not first in the confession and preaching of the post-Easter community,
but in the historical Jesus' (35-36), referring to Mark 1.1 and Acts 10.37ff. (see also below,
§11.2c).
116. See further below, §13.2b.
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