Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

FROM THE GOSPELS TO JESUS §10.2
tion against his meta-narrative of Israel in exile and restoration, he has the necessary
'large hypothesis', a serious historical hypothesis, within which all the details
of the Jesus tradition find their place, a whole which illumines the parts
most satisfactorily. 11
My own conviction, arising from the considerations of the preceding chapters,
is that it would be wise to look first at the broad picture, 12 or, drawing on
Keek's term, to look for the 'characteristic Jesus' rather than the dissimilar Jesus.
13 Otherwise we are liable to become quickly bogged down and lost in a mire
of details over individual disputed sayings. 14 It should be noted that the oral
paradigm is equally susceptible to the same danger, since the variations of performance
prevent any easy access to some 'original form' in individual cases. 15
If I am right, however, what we are looking at in the Jesus tradition, and what we
are looking for through the Jesus tradition, is one whose mission was remembered
for a number of features, each illustrated by stories and teaching and performed
in the disciple circles and church gatherings, though not yet (properly
speaking) 'documented' (the literary paradigm). 16
11. Wright, Jesus, e.g., 79 (cited below in § 12.6c at n. 416), 88, 225, 245, 517, 576-77
('the controlling story: exile and restoration'). He has presumably been influenced by Meyer,
who enunciates two principles of historical criticism: 'The technique of history is the hypothesis';
'Hypotheses require verification' (Aims 90-91).
12. This is my variation of what Telford has categorized as the 'holistic' method and the
tendency to ask 'broader questions' ('Major Trends' 50, 52, 57).
13. See above chapter 5 at n. 80. My proposal here echoes Dahl's suggestion that we
should focus on 'cross sections' of the tradition: 'Cross sections of the tradition bring to the
fore what was characteristic. . . . Words and reports of differing form and genre, transmitted
within various layers of the tradition, mutually illumine each other and yield a total picture in
which there appears something that is characteristic of Jesus. Whether the historicity of individual
words or episodes remains uncertain is consequently of less importance. The fact that
these words and occurrences found a place within the tradition about Jesus indicates that they
agreed with the total picture as it existed within the circle of the disciples' ('Problem' 95). Cf.
also Crossan's focus on 'complexes' rather than individual sayings (Historical Jesus xxxiixxxiv);
but Tuckett illustrates how arbitrary is his composition of these complexes ('Historical
Jesus' 266-68, 270-72). Patterson uses Funk's term 'typifications' (God of Jesus 57-58, 271).
14. In Sanders' view, too much reliance on 'careful exegesis of the sayings material' has
led too many NT scholars into a quagmire (Jesus and Judaism 131-33, 139), though his own
method of correlating words with deeds allows him to be surprisingly confident in his own ability
to reach a firm conclusion regarding what Jesus said about the Temple (71-76). But 'characteristic
emphases' can be substantiated without necessarily being able to set each saying in a
particular context.
15. See, e.g., the recent debate on whether Matt. 6.25-33/Luke 12.22-31 or P.Oxy. 655 is
earlier (below, chapter 14 n. 45).
16. Reiser, 'Eschatology' 223, cites H. Strasburger, 'Die Bibel in der Sicht eines
Althistorikers', Studien zur Alten Geschichte (Hildesheim: George 01ms, 1990) 317-39: 'The
very abundance of historical inconsistencies speaks in favor of an ... untidy, but certainly de-
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