Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

FAITH AND THE HISTORICAL JESUS §6.5
that the historical text as historical text provides parameters for the meanings to
be read out from it (§6.4a), so the overall homogeneity of the Synoptic tradition
points to the consistency of the impact made by Jesus as attested by that tradition.
To put it another way, it is the consistency of disciple-response which gives
the tradition its consistency. 120 At the same time it is important to remember,
given the diversity (and fissiparity) of subsequent Christianity, that the circle of
discipleship was not uniform from the beginning and that a diversity of responses
could be and was contained within the homogeneity of the overall response,
within the discipleship which gave rise in due course to the earliest churches. If
Jesus was always the unifying factor, and disciple-faith in him, it was a unity embracing
and holding together a diversity of faith responses from the first.
But were there not other responses which fell short of discipleship, or
which understood discipleship differently, or which stopped short of Good Friday
and Easter? There are certainly hints of such in our traditions, 121 and neo-
Liberalism wants to find evidence of such in the Gospel of Thomas and other
documents. Whether such claims can be sustained by the evidence of these
sources is an issue which we have still to discuss. 122 But it is already clear that
the disciple-response which created the Synoptic tradition and from which mainstream
Christianity emerged is that with which we primarily have to do. 123 Whatever
we may think regarding Gnostic Christianity as a legitimate (or otherwise)
response to Jesus, the fact is that Q was not retained within mainstream Christianity
except as integrated with the Gospel format initiated by Mark, and
Thomas was rejected by the emerging great Church. The very concern of some
scholars to justify use of the Gospel of Thomas by seeking to demonstrate its
consistency with a stripped-down Synoptic tradition is actually a backhanded
recognition of the normativeness of the Synoptic tradition. So while we will want
to be alert to the likely (and possibly uncomfortable) breadth of the diversity of
the earliest faith-response to Jesus, it will inevitably be the Synoptic tradition
which commands our primary attention. And our first concern will be to trace the
early outlines of the principal thoroughfare which led through Good Friday and
Easter, the first stirrings of Christianity in the making.
120. Cf. Dodd: 'The first three gospels offer a body of sayings on the whole so consistent,
so coherent, and withal so distinctive in manner, style and content, that no reasonable
critic should doubt, whatever reservations he may have about individual sayings, that we find
here reflected the thought of a single, unique teacher' (Founder 21-22); Schillebeeckx: 'this
pluralism which at rock bottom is "held together" by Jesus as he lived on earth and was apprehended
by other people' (Jesus 51).
121. E.g. Mark 9.38-41; Acts 19.1-7.
122. See below, particularly §§7.4, 6.
123. The relevance and importance of John's Gospel for our task is more disputed; see
further below, §7.7.
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