Discovering Jesus – Chapter 2: A New Search for Jesus
2. A New Search for Jesus
At the beginning of this century it was very popular to talk about searching for the historical Jesus. Dr Albert Schweitzer wrote ‘In Quest of the Historical Jesus’ and that started a theological fashion – trying to find out what the real Jesus would have been like. 1
The search continues. Theologians, writers, film-makers and television commentators have all made their way to Palestine, to walk in the steps of the Galilean and try and reconstruct his life, death and resurrection. The question is: can we still hope to find anything of the historical Jesus?
So many of the sites claimed to be the original places where Jesus walked are today excessively commercialised. Islamic mosques, Crusader castles, Orthodox churches, Catholic monasteries and Protestant societies vie with one another over the site of the birth of Jesus, his home in Nazareth, the judgement seat of Pilate, the place of the crucifixion or the locale for his resurrection. Advocates of each tradition expound the merits of each site with the enthusiasm that only a good tourist promoter can exercise. Is there anything about this world where Jesus walked that he would recognise today?
In an important sense history cannot be separated from theology. Our search for the historical Jesus will always be bound up with our search for the risen Christ.
The first Christmas
The story of Jesus doesn’t start in Bethlehem; it starts in eternity:
Before the world was created, the Word already existed: he was with God, and he was the same as God. From the very beginning the Word was with God. Through him God made all things; not one thing in all creation was made without him. The Word was the source of life, and this life brought light to mankind…The Word became a human being and, full of grace and truth, lived among us. We saw his glory, the glory which he received as the Father’s only Son. 2
The New Testament writers proclaimed Jesus as God’s eternal Son, involved in creation and destined from the very foundation of the world to live among us in this land called Israel. His coming was in Bethlehem. 3
This small rural town, set in the Judean hills and surrounded by fields in which shepherds first heard the news of his birth, was of historical interest long before the first Christmas. Bethlehem is associated with Jacob, with Rachel, with Ruth and, of course, the shepherd-boy, King David.
In spite of this, it was not a significant place and did not figure prominently in the history of Israel. But the prophet Micah had foretold a dramatic change: ‘Bethlehem Ephrathah, you are one of smallest towns in Judah, but out of you I will bring a ruler for Israel, whose family line goes back to ancient times.’ 5
This was the prophecy remembered by those in Herod’s palace when they were asked by some travelling magi where the newborn King of the Jews was to be born. 6
Joseph and his young teenage bride-to-be, firm in the later stages of pregnancy, did not choose to travel seventy miles by foot and donkey to this mountain-top township for romantic reasons. Emperor Caesar Augustus, in one of those cunning plans designed to increase taxation revenues that governments in every century manage to devise, ordered a census to be taken throughout the world conquered by the Romans. Every male had to return to the place of his family. 7 Thus Joseph, who lived in Nazareth to the north, returned with Mary to his ancestral township – to take part in the census.
Not for one moment did the public servants of Caesar Augustus in the imperial halls of Rome imagine that their edicts would be the means of fulfilment of centuries of prophecy. The babe was born in Bethlehem in a backyard barn, because other important people had occupied every bed. 8
Both Matthew and Luke record in their Gospels the background genealogy of Jesus: Matthew taking it back to Abraham, the first Hebrew; Luke taking his genealogy back to Adam, the first man – then back to God to indicate that Jesus lay in historic continuity from the act of creation and was therefore a true Son of God. 9 Both of these authors traced the ancestry of Jesus through Joseph, 10 yet both insist that Jesus was born while Mary was a virgin. 11 They wanted to indicate that his blood line ran back to King David, yet they also wanted to indicate that Jesus was born through God’s grace. Jesus’ birth was not an act of human achievement. Joseph was utterly powerless. God provides for our salvation without any effort on our part.
The birth of Jesus occurred somewhere around 6 BC. At first this sounds absurd but, when you understand that the early monks who drew up the calendar simply omitted one unfortunate Roman emperor in their dating system, 12 it’s easy to see how Christ could be born six years before the start of the Christian era.
Bethlehem, then, was the climax of a long historic process. Jesus was born in the middle of winter to a very astonished, young girl. Although in the most inconvenient of situations, away from family or friends, Mary fulfilled in a remarkable way the prophecies of centuries. Matthew’s Gospel knows nothing of the long and uncomfortable trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem, or the birth in the stable. It simply announces the birth in a single sentence 13 and then moves on to the coming of the wise men from the east. They did not arrive until some time later, when the young family had moved from the stable into a house.
Luke’s story is much more detailed; he had interviewed those who were eyewitnesses of these events from the very beginning. Mary had revealed to him or to one of this sources the innermost details of her pregnancy, the birth and the subsequent presentation of her infant son at the Temple, 14 recalling vividly 15 how people like Simeon and Anna had greeted the baby. 16
In the second century the Christian writer, Justin Martyr, 17 reported that Jesus was born in a cave near the village. Even today, in the neighbourhood of Bethlehem, there are caves in the hills used as backyard stables. In one of these Jesus was born.
How appropriate that God who came to earth in weakness, humility and poverty should have been born in a place now lost in obscurity.
The Church of the Nativity, first built in the year AD 339, still stands as the central point of Bethlehem – quite incongruous with the fact that, when Jesus was born, there was no room for him in this city. Joseph let Bethlehem with his family as refugees, fleeing from the anger of the murderous Herod. 18 There is no record that Jesus ever visited Bethlehem again.
Herod’s insane determination to wipe out any possible rival to his throne was unintentionally communicated by the visiting magi who came seeking a newborn king. 19 Joseph escaped with his wife and child to the safety of Egypt. There they lived in safety until Herod died. 20 The refugees, the oppressed and those who flee from the murderous tyrants of our age may find some comfort in the thought that even God’s Son has shared their plight and privation.
A miraculous birth
We should pause here and comment on what must surely rank as one of the most inconsequential arguments ever in the history of the Christian Church. Matthew and Luke both state that Mary was a virgin when she conceived through the Holy Spirit, becoming pregnant without a human father. 21
The virgin conception of Jesus was unique in history. The other New Testament authors evidently did not consider it important enough a matter and no other Gospel writer mentions it. Paul, who was specially interested in the eternal significance of Jesus, did not make any reference to the virgin birth, nor used it as a test of orthodoxy.
The belief in the virgin birth grew up very largely because of another Old Testament prophecy – from Isaiah, who said, ‘Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son.’ 22 The term was used of any young girl who was presumed to be a virgin. In this twentieth century, our sceptical minds have appraised the case for and against contemporary virgin births. However, scientific argument concerning the significance of male chromosomes and biological evidence on cloning and the like have created much heat but little light.
The New Testament scriptures are not interested in the manner of the incarnation, nor the physiology of the birth. The scriptures simply declare that Mary was a virgin when she conceived. This seems a fitting way for the Son of God to be conceived, indicating the qualitative difference between Jesus and God’s Son and other humans.
Yet the Church was not misled when it reaffirmed the virgin birth in the early creeds; Joseph’s reaction shows his belief in Mary’s virginity. 23 The scriptures do not present the view that virgin birth is a rare occurrence, but that it was unique in the case of Jesus. Therefore scientific investigations into the significance of chromosomes and other claims for parthenogenesis (reproduction without fertilization of the egg) are totally irrelevant.
That Jesus was born of a virgin seems to be factually probable and theologically correct – the conjunction of an excellent tradition and a spiritual fitness which commends itself to Christians. It is not the virgin birth that assures us of the greatness of Jesus; rather the greatness of Jesus causes us to believe in the virgin birth. It is not improbable that God should become a man by being born of a virgin mother; the real improbability is that God should ever become a man at all. Once we have accepted the fact of the incarnation, then the method of the virgin birth is not a problem.
Jesus’ early childhood
On the news of Herod’s death, 24 Joseph took his wife and the young child back to Nazareth where he had previously worked, little realising that another prophecy had indicated that the Son of God would come from Nazareth as a Galilean. 25 The town became the home of Jesus as a child, a teenager and a man. 26
Nazareth lay at the crossroads of several main trade routes. Being such a cosmopolitan town led to be a certain liberalism in its behaviour. The people of Nazareth regarded themselves as more liberated than those in Jerusalem, the capital city to the south. For this reason orthodox Jews scorned the people of Nazareth. Later Jesus was to meet with the same slander associated with anybody coming from Nazareth. 27
We know of only five events in the childhood of Jesus. While still in Bethlehem he was circumcised on the eighth day, 28 thus identifying himself with the divine covenant given to God’s people Israel.
He was then presented to the Temple, to be ‘redeemed’ by the payment of five shekels. 29 Mary was also purified following childbirth. It was at this time that those two godly, elderly citizens, Simeon and Anna, saw in the coming of Jesus the fulfilment of their expectation. The poverty of Joseph and Mary was seen in the fact that they presented the poorest offering allowable – a couple of doves.
It was about this time that some magi, 30 travelling from the Babylonian centres of astrology, enquired about the birth of a new king foretold by the strange occurrence of a bright star. They left their gifts with the young child and his obviously startled parents.
The fourth event in the childhood of Jesus concerns his seeking refuge in Egypt, 31 where thankfully history is utterly silent and the tourist trades have not yet found any lucratives sites for adoration.
The fifth event in the life of Jesus recorded in scripture as a child was his journey, at twelve years of age, to the Temple in Jerusalem. 32 This passover was a very significant one in the life of Jesus. The story of how the young boy stayed behind, discussing with his elders the meaning of the scriptures while his parents left for home, thinking he was travelling with some cousins or other young friends, is one that every parent recognises as being factual. In the confusion of the pilgrims, they did not note his absence. They returned to find him still discussing the teaching of God. The scripture here declares: ‘They returned to their home town of Nazareth in Galilee. The child grew and became strong; he was full of wisdom and God’s blessings were upon him.’ 33
Jesus’ teenage years
The silence of the scriptures concerning the details of the boyhood of Jesus was quickly filled in with legend from the early centuries. However, this silence indicates that the childhood of Jesus was completely indistinguishable from that of any other boy in the town.
Nazareth lies fifteen miles west of the Sea of Galilee. The entire Old Testament takes no mention of its existence. Somewhere in its narrow streets, the front room of the house of Joseph became the carpenter’s shop. Here the child who played with wood shavings was soon to be an apprentice with the tradesman’s tools. His arms and back grew strong with cutting the trees and hauling the logs from the nearby mountain. I wonder if he had a sign over the door of his carpenter’s shop, advertising ‘My yokes are easy’? 34
His fellow townsmen did not consider Jesus a person of any special capacity. Their scepticism led to only few people there being healed later in his ministry, 35 and to hostility later in his life. From the Mount of Precipitation, they sought to throw him to his death when he claimed to be the fulfilment of scripture. 36
At some time in the early teenage years of Jesus, Joseph apparently died: Jesus took over the responsibility of caring for his mother, Mary, his four younger brothers and an unknown number of sisters. 37
Only a few years earlier, the cosmopolitan nature of the town caused its one wild moment of history. In AD 6, some townspeople rose up in revolt against the collection of taxes by the Romans. This occurred when Jesus was aged twelve. His young eyes must have vividly recorded the speed with which the Roman soldiers crushed the local rebellion. How the locals must have discussed the question that, years later, was put to him in adulthood: ‘Is it against our law to pay taxes to the Roman emperor? Should we pay them or not?’ 38
We can learn much, however, about these silent years from the later words of Jesus. For example, we note the influence of his mother as a sensitive and devout person. Jesus used the Aramaic word ‘talitha’, a pet name meaning ‘little lamb’ which he probably heard from his own mother’s use of the term. 39
The influence of Joseph as a strong and good man who taught Jesus his trade as a carpenter also was significant. When he looked for a new term to use of our relationship with God, for the first time in history Jesus chose the word ‘Father’. 40 Only a satisfactory memory of Joseph’s strength, kindness and provision would have allowed him to use that name when he thought of God.
From his later parables, it’s obvious that Jesus knew the responsibilities and difficulties of a large family living in poverty. Thus he described finding the lost coin, 41 measuring flour, 42 having guests arrive late at night when there was no food available in the cupboard, 43 having hungry children come home from school playing games on the way, 44 putting patches on garments, 45 and using old skins for wine. 46
It was while he was a child that Jesus learnt to read the scriptures in Hebrew, to speak both Greek and Aramaic, to understand the Old Testament prophecies, 47 to interpret the Servant passages of Isaiah 48 and to debate with the learned. 49 His childhood experiences stored in his mind a detailed understanding of scripture. Later he would declare, ‘You have heard that it was said…but now I tell you…’ 50
The scenes of the village life of Nazareth always remained with Jesus. Greek and Roman influences were strong in that wheat-growing area. Part of the old synagogue still stands in the area. 51 It was here he observed a village wedding, 52 and irritable local magistrate, 53 unemployed men idly standing around the street corner, 54 and a country boy who took his money and went off to the big city, only to return home penniless. 55 ‘Well did he know what was in human nature.’ 56
But the influence of the farms around Nazareth also pervades the teaching of Jesus. He spoke of flocks, herds and crops, 57 of farmers, vines, olives, figs, oaks and walnut trees. 58 He knew about mustard seed, farmers who wasted seed, scarlet poppies, the sun and rain on the corn, the lilies of the field and the sparrows of the air. 59
It was Nazareth that brought the facts of human existence into the mind and experience of Jesus.
The Christ of faith
Thus there is both a historical search and a theological search. Of the historical search, we can find very little of Jesus other than that already known. The efforts of Schweitzer and Bultmann to peel back the traditions of the years – to try to find the original inner core of the human Jesus through the writing and words attributed to him – is a vain search. The continuing arguments of theologians about what is found when all the layers of onion are peeled away will continue. What can be found is the Christ of faith. The earliest Christians spoke of ‘the Lord Jesus Christ’. 60 While the Jesus of history cannot be fully discovered, the Lord and Messiah can.
(a) Jesus
The name of Jesus has long been ‘sweet in a believer’s ear’. His old Hebrew name mean Joshua. Joseph was told to call him Jesus, because ‘he would save his people from their sins.’ 61 The early church used the name of Jesus as a means of calling upon his power. 62 Paul pronounced judgement in the name of Jesus. 63 The name of Jesus was used by the exorcists. 64 Christians suffered for his name’s sake. 65 Miracles were worked in his name 66 and baptism was to be in his name. 67
The name of Jesus stresses his humanity. He was the carpenter of Nazareth. 68 Only when his saviourhood was fully understood was he consistently referred to as Jesus Christ.
(b) Christ
‘Christ’ was the Greek term for ‘the Messiah’. The disciples and others recognised Jesus to be the Messiah. 69 Sometimes this was used as a descriptive term (‘You are the Christ’ 70), but between the death of Jesus and the writing of the first scriptures it had become a surname for him.
So the earliest Gospel, the Gospel of Mark, commences: ‘The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.’ 71
(c) Lord
That he is ‘Lord’ is the acknowledgement of his right and rule over the life of all.
While little can be discovered of the historical Jesus in the sites of Bethlehem and Nazareth, the Lord Jesus Christ can still be discovered by faith today. Whenever we pause in our modern rush and believe that God broke into our history in Jesus, we can meet the Lord of history himself.
Endnotes:
1. Albert Schweitzer, In Quest of the Historical Jesus, London. 1954. See also Rudolf Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, London, 1955; James M Robinson, A New Quest of the Historical Jesus, London, 1959; Gunther Bornkamm, Jesus of Nazareth, Hodder & Stoughton, 1960; Eduard Schweitzer, Jesus, SCM, 1971 and C.H. Dodd, The Founder of Christianity, Fontana, 1973. See also I. Howard Marshall, I Believe in the Historical Jesus, Hodder & Stoughton, 1977 and David Winter, The Search for the Real Jesus, Hodder & Stoughton, 1982
2. John 1:1-4 and 14
3. Matthew 2:1; Luke 2:4; John 7:42
4. Genesis 35:19; Ruth 1:19 and 4:11; 1 Samuel 17:15
5. Micah 5:2
6. Matthew 2:1-8
7. Luke 2:1-5
8. Luke 2:6-7
9. Matthew 1:1-17
10. Luke 3:23-38
11. Luke 1:26-28; Matthew 1:18-19
12. Dionysius Exignus (lived AD 500-550) compiled a calendar on which our modern calendar is based. He left out one Roman Emperor in the seventh century BC.
13. Matthew 2:1
14. Luke 1:26-56
15. Luke 2:19
16. Luke 2:25-38
17. Justin Martyr (AD 100-165), First Apology: Dialogue with Trypho
18. Matthew 2:13
19. Matthew 2:1-5
20. Matthew 2:9
21. Matthew 1:18; Luke 1:34-35
22. Isaiah 7:14
23. Matthew 1:19
24. Matthew 2:22
25. Matthew 2:23
26. Luke 2:51-52
27. John 1:46; Mark 6:1-6
28. Luke 2:21
29. Luke 2:22-24
30. Matthew 2:1-12
31. Matthew 2:13-15
32. Luke 2:41-50
33. Luke 2:40
34. Compare Matthew 11:29-30
35. Matthew 13:53-58; Mark 6:1-6; Luke 4:16-30
36. Luke 4:29-30
37. Mark 6:3
38. Mark 12:14
39. Compare Mark 5:41
40. Matthew 6:8-9
41. Luke 15:8-10
42. Luke 16:7-8
43. Luke 11:5-9
44. Matthew 11:16-17
45. Matthew 9:16
46. Matthew 9:17
47. Matthew 5:17-20
48. Luke 4:17-19
49.Luke 4:22
50. Matthew 5:21-22
51. A church was built on the Synagogue foundations about AD 400
52. Luke 14:8
53. Luke 18:1-8
54. Matthew 20:3
55. Luke 15:11-24
56. John 2:25 NIV
57. Luke 15:1-7; Luke 12:16-21
58. Mark 13:28-31; Luke 21:29-33
59. Luke 13:18-19; Luke 8:5-8; Matthew 6:25-30; Luke 12:22-31
60. Acts 2:36; Philippians 2:11; 2 Corinthians 13:13; 1 Thessalonians 5:23
61. Matthew 1:21
62. Acts 3:6
63. 1 Corinthians 5:3-5
64. Acts 19:13-17
65. Matthew 10:22; 1 Peter 4:16
66. Acts 3:6
67. Acts 19:5
68. Matthew 13:55
69. Matthew 16:16
70. Mark 8:29 RSV
71. Mark 1:1
For personal reading
Theme: The God who reaches out
Monday : The search for God (Job 23:1-10)
Tuesday : Hope for an ailing world (Isaiah 40:1-11)
Wednesday : They mystery of Christ’s coming (Matthew 1:18-25)
Thursday : The deliverer arrives (Luke 2:1-20)
Friday : Bread for the world (John 6:32-51)
Saturday : Rebellion in the ranks (Romans 7:14-25)
Sunday : He who was rich became poor (Philippians 2:1-13)
For group reading
Topic: A New Search for Jesus
1. For the Gospel writers, what was the significance of tracing the ancestry of Jesus?
2. As the birth of Jesus, Joseph is portrayed as being utterly helpless. Why?
3. What is the significance of the virgin birth?
4. Early believers quickly tried to fill in the silence of the years Jesus spent growing up in Nazareth. Why is the silence of the Bible better?
5. The apostle John said that Jesus knew human nature well. What evidence do we have for this?
6. Jesus spent years working as a carpenter in Nazareth. What does this tell us:
(a) about Jesus?
(b) about ourselves?
7. In today’s world how can we find from the Jesus of history, the Christ of faith?