Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

§10.2 Through the Gospels to Jesus
The same considerations also offer a broad-brush criterion for the wouldbe
quester to which appeal should be made before turning to particular detail.
The criterion is this: any feature which is characteristic within the Jesus tradition
and relatively distinctive of the Jesus tradition is most likely to go back to Jesus,
17 that is, to reflect the original impact made by Jesus' teaching and actions
on several at least of his first disciples. The logic is straightforward: if a feature is
characteristic within and relatively distinctive of the Jesus tradition (in comparison
with other Jewish traditions), then the most obvious explanation of its presence
in the Jesus tradition is that it reflects the abiding impression which Jesus
made on at least many of his first followers, which first drew them into and constituted
their community with other disciples, and which was celebrated (together
with the kerygmatic traditions of cross and resurrection) in the gatherings
of the first churches through the first generation of Christianity. 18
It should be noted once again that this approach to the Jesus tradition by no
means excludes development within the tradition. It simply reconceives the processes
of development. The oral paradigm acknowledges flexibility as well as
stability; the Synoptic tradition demands no less by way of explanation of its
lasting shape. All the Jesus tradition reflects the perspective of post-Easter faith,
even though that developed faith has not left a material mark on many of the
retellings. I have acknowledged that some sayings of early Christian prophets
may be included within the present Jesus tradition, though not a lot, and only because
they were consistent with the already received tradition. More to the point,
in the retelling of various stories and sayings, as we have already observed, earlier
tradition/performances have been supplemented or elaborated in different
ways. 19 The tradition has been clarified in the light of events. Whether the Evangelists
drew such elaborations from the churches' repertoire or felt free to develop
a point in oral mode is impossible to say; I am open to both possibilities.
What I am clearer on, however, is that such developments most likely were along
the lines indicated or allowed by the tradition, rather than introducing wholly
veloped oral tradition whose honest basic effort at the beginnings of the formation of tradition
was apparently to preserve as precise as possible a memory of Jesus, his teaching and proclamation,
that is, to give a true and historical witness. And precisely this unique, unfalsifiable
overall impression has undoubtedly been preserved in the canonical gospels ... no matter how
many details in the accounts may still, and perhaps forever, remain disputable' (336-37).
17. As Funk notes, 'distinctive' is a better historical category than 'dissimilar' (Honest
145).
18. The significance of these considerations for the resolution of classic disputes regarding
the Son of Man and Jesus' preaching of the kingdom of God should be obvious; see below
§§12.4-5 and 16.3-5. Schröter refers similarly to the Baptist and Son of Man traditions
('Markus, Q und der historische Jesus' 186-98).
19. Cf., e.g., Moule, Birth 111-12.
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