Saturday, January 26, 2019
FOOTHOLD IN IMMUNITY
In
1864, Charles Sumner, abolitionist and Senator from Massachusetts, gave a
speech in the Senate to support a constitutional amendment to abolish slavery.
He addressed the way prejudice is often used to read a text. Here is what he
had to say about that:
“People
naturally find in texts of Scripture the support of their own religious
opinions or prejudices; and, in the same way, they naturally find in texts of
the Constitution the support of their own political opinions or prejudices. And
this may not be in either case because Scripture or Constitution, when truly
interpreted, support these opinions or prejudices; but because people are apt
to find in texts simply a reflection of themselves … whoever finds any support
of slavery in the Constitution of the United States has first found such
support in himself … he has already conceded to it [slavery] a certain
traditional foothold of immunity, which he straightway transfers from himself
to the Constitution … it is not the Constitution, so much as human nature
itself, which has been at fault. Let the people change, and the Constitution
will change also.”
These
words, these insights, are perfect. It is not necessary to change a word to
apply them to biblical studies and in particular to historical Jesus studies.
The Gospel texts are most often read as presenting Jesus surrounded by Jewish
enemies; in other words, in the eyes of scholars, the Gospels have a definite
anti-Jewish slant, which they take to reflect a historical reality. While I
would grant there is some anti-Jewishness in the Gospels, it has been
exaggerated way out of proportion to what is actually there. To borrow from
Sumner, scholars have conceded to the anti-Jewish angle a certain foothold of
immunity, which they straightway transfer from themselves to the Gospels. It is
not the Gospels which are at fault, so much as human nature itself.
The
most obvious example of this is the story of Judas. Almost every scholar
declares that Mark and the other Gospels make Judas out to be a traitor. Judas
as traitor has that foothold of immunity in scholars. The truth is that almost
every piece of evidence concerning Judas is ambiguous; in Mark, it is a perfectly
ambiguous story. The evidence could be consistent with the theory of Judas as a
traitor, but each piece of evidence is equally consistent with the theory that
Judas was an innocent man falsely accused of being a traitor.
The
slant in the direction of traitor comes from the human nature of scholars, not
from the Gospel texts. It is so bad that most scholars will not even concede
that traitor Judas is a theory and therefore debatable. They have turned him
into a fact and have thereby exempted their fact from debate. The correctness
of this fact cannot be questioned. It has immunity, as Sumner would put it.
The
facts are not the main issue in historical Jesus studies. Prejudice is the
issue. That topic does not get discussed very much. It is an old human truth:
We will investigate anything except ourselves. Socrates found that hilarious.
©
2019 Leon Zitzer
