Criterion of dissimilarity

Last updated

The criterion of dissimilarity [1] (often used as a shorthand for criterion of double dissimilarity; [2] it is also called criterion of discontinuity, [1] [3] originality [1] or dual irreducibility [1] ) is used in Biblical criticism to determine if a statement attributed to Jesus may be authentic. The criterion states that if a saying attributed to Jesus is different from both the Jewish traditions of his time and the early Church that followed him, it is likely to come from the historical Jesus. [2]

Contents

Description

Although early forms of the criterion of dissimilarity date back to the Renaissance, [4] its modern formulation comes from Ernst Käsemann, [5] who in 1953 started the second quest for the historical Jesus. [6] : 122 

Käsemann writes:

[T]here is an almost complete lack of satisfactory and water-tight criteria for this material. In only one case do we have more or less safe ground under our feet: when there are no grounds either for deriving a tradition from Judaism or for ascribing it to primitive Christianity, and especially when Jewish Christianity has mitigated or modified the received tradition, as having been too bold for its taste. (Käsemann, Essays on New Testament Themes, p. 37) [7]

In other words, the criterion postulates that traditions about Jesus derive from (only) three sources: extrapolation from earlier Jewish traditions, revisionism by the early Christian Church, and true historical accounts of Jesus's ministry. [1] If some tradition cannot be adequately explained by extrapolation nor by revisionism, then it can (or must) be a trace of the historical Jesus. [1] Aside from Käsemann, his teacher Rudolf Bultmann and Norman Perrin were also major proponents of the criterion of dissimilarity. [4] John P. Meier (1991) stated that the criterion of dissimilarity is "closely allied to the criterion of embarrassment", but unlike Polkow (1987), he did not think the two criteria completely overlap. [1]

Bart D. Ehrman (1999) gave a somewhat different description of how the criterion of dissimilarity is supposed to work: it must be determined whether "there is at least a theoretical possibility that these sayings and deeds were made up precisely in order to advance the views that some Christians held dear," or whether they are "'dissimilar' traditions, that is, those that do not support a clear Christian agenda, or that appear to work against it". [8] Because the latter "are difficult to explain unless they are authentic, they are therefore more likely to be historical." [8]

Examples of its use

Baptism of Jesus (Menologion of Basil II, c. 1100). The general traditions of John the Baptist baptising Jesus pass the criterion of dissimilarity, but suggestions by John that Jesus should baptise him instead (Matthew 3:14) or that Jesus was confessing "the sins of the world" rather than his own (John 1:29) do not. Menologion of Basil 040 detail.jpg
Baptism of Jesus ( Menologion of Basil II , c. 1100). The general traditions of John the Baptist baptising Jesus pass the criterion of dissimilarity, but suggestions by John that Jesus should baptise him instead (Matthew 3:14) or that Jesus was confessing "the sins of the world" rather than his own (John 1:29) do not.

Scholars generally agree that the baptism of Jesus is an example of a tradition that passes the criterion of dissimilarity, because most early Christians appear to have believed "that a person who was baptized was spiritually inferior to the one who was doing the baptizing." [9] [10] : 8:21  It is unlikely that early Christians would have regarded Jesus as spiritually inferior to John the Baptist, and so they probably would not have invented this story. [9] [10] : 8:21  In fact, Matthew 3:14 records a tradition that has John the Baptist protesting against Jesus' request to be baptised, saying that Jesus should baptise him instead. [9] [10] : 8:21  [6] : 240  Scholars regard this as potential evidence of early Christians' apparent embarrassment that John baptised Jesus and not vice versa; therefore, Matthew 3:14 cannot pass the criterion of dissimilarity, but the rest of the baptism narrative can. [9] [10] : 8:21  [6] : 240  Gerd Theissen and Dagmar Winter (2002) added that early Christians believed that people who underwent baptism confessed to sin, which posed a problem, because the story that Jesus was baptised – and thus presumably had sinned as well – was incompatible with early Christian views of Jesus as a divine being. [6] : 239  Theissen and Winter therefore regarded the tradition of John 1:29 as claiming that Jesus was coming to be baptised "to take away the sins of the world", not his own, as an early Christian modification of the tradition that could not be historically authentic. [6] : 239 

The crucifixion of Jesus passes the criterion of dissimilarity on the grounds that it appears that although there was a wide range of beliefs about what the Messiah was going to be like, no Jews at the time believed that the Messiah would suffer and die. [9] [10] : 10:38  The apostle Paul stated in 1 Corinthians 1:23 that the crucifixion of Christ (=Messiah) was "a stumbling block to Jews", who apparently did not believe that the Messiah was going to be crucified, concluded that Jesus could not have been the Messiah and thus refused to convert to Christianity. [9] [10] : 13:22  On the other hand, Ehrman claimed that it follows that even Jesus himself may not have known or believed that he would be crucified, and so the Synoptic traditions of Jesus predicting his own death by crucifixion in Jerusalem do not pass the criterion of dissimilarity. [11] He emphasised that this does not mean that Jesus definitely did not predict his death, just that the authenticity of the saying cannot be established through this criterion. [12] Likewise, Bellinzoni argued that the words "take up their cross" in Mark 8:34 failed the criterion of dissimilarity, because they reflect the early church's beliefs about the meaning of the crucifixion, and may thus represent an interpolation, perhaps inserted into the tradition before the author of the Gospel of Mark wrote it down. [13]

Ehrman attributed the traditions of the young Jesus raising children from the dead or magically solving issues in the carpenter workshop of Joseph as recorded in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas to "later Christian imagination". [14]

Limitations

The criterion has received criticism for leading to reconstructions of the historical Jesus as being in implausible discontinuity with the early Jewish traditions that preceded him and the early Christian traditions that followed from him. One objection by Morna Hooker is that the criterion requires full knowledge of 1st-century Jewish and Christian beliefs, which scholars do not have, and therefore it is difficult to compare them with the traditions of Jesus for this criterion to work. [1] Oegema pointed out that increasing knowledge poses a new issue:

The problem of the Criterion of Double Dissimilarity is that the more we know about early Jewish traditions and the more we know about early Christian post-Easter traditions, the less space there is for a reconstruction of the authentic sayings of Jesus, as by definition they have to differ from early Jewish and early Christian traditions. Therefore, in the end, no trace of a historical Jesus remains. [15]

Meier concluded that the original definition of the criterion (by Käsemann) of a wholly-non-Jewish and wholly-non-Christian Jesus was too stringent and needed to be relaxed:

To paint a portrait of Jesus completely divorced from or opposed to 1st-century Judaism and Christianity is simply to place him outside of history. (...) Hence, while the criterion of discontinuity is useful, we must guard against the presupposition that it will automatically give us what was central to or at least fairly representative of Jesus' teaching. By focusing narrowly upon what may have been Jesus' "idiosyncrasies", it is always in danger of highlighting what was striking but possibly peripheral in his message.

Therefore, it needed to be balanced by other criteria of authenticity. [1] Ehrman emphasised the possibility of continuity between teachings of Jesus and early Christian beliefs:

Just because a saying or deed of Jesus happens to conform to what Christians were saying about him does not mean that it cannot be accurate. Obviously, the earliest disciples followed Jesus precisely because they appreciated the things that he said and did. (...) the criterion may do no more than cast a shadow of doubt on certain traditions.

It is therefore "best used not in the negative way of establishing what Jesus did not say or do, but in the positive way of showing what he likely did." [14]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gospel of Luke</span> Book of the New Testament

The Gospel of Luke tells of the origins, birth, ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. Together with the Acts of the Apostles, it makes up a two-volume work which scholars call Luke–Acts, accounting for 27.5% of the New Testament. The combined work divides the history of first-century Christianity into three stages, with the gospel making up the first two of these – the life of Jesus the Messiah from his birth to the beginning of his mission in the meeting with John the Baptist, followed by his ministry with events such as the Sermon on the Plain and its Beatitudes, and his Passion, death, and resurrection.

Gospel originally meant the Christian message, but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was reported. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words and deeds of Jesus, culminating in his trial and death and concluding with various reports of his post-resurrection appearances.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Josephus on Jesus</span> Mentions of Jesus in the writings of the 1st-century historian

The first-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus provides external information on some people and events found in the New Testament. The extant manuscripts of Josephus' book Antiquities of the Jews, written around AD 93–94, contain two references to Jesus of Nazareth and one reference to John the Baptist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gospel of Thomas</span> Extra-canonical sayings gospel

The Gospel of Thomas is an extra-canonical sayings gospel. It was discovered near Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in 1945 among a group of books known as the Nag Hammadi library. Scholars speculate the works were buried in response to a letter from Bishop Athanasius declaring a strict canon of Christian scripture. Scholars have proposed dates of composition as early as 60 AD and late as 250 AD, with most placing it during the second century. Many scholars have seen it as evidence of the existence of a "Q source" that might have been similar in its form as a collection of sayings of Jesus, without any accounts of his deeds or his life and death, referred to as a sayings gospel, though most conclude that Thomas depends on or harmonizes the Synoptics.

The Jesus Seminar was a group of about 50 biblical criticism scholars and 100 laymen founded in 1985 by Robert Funk that originated under the auspices of the Westar Institute. The seminar was very active through the 1980s and 1990s, and into the early 21st century.

The historicity of Jesus is the question of whether Jesus historically existed. The question of historicity was generally settled in scholarship in the early 20th century. Today scholars agree that a Jewish man named Jesus of Nazareth did exist in the Herodian Kingdom of Judea and the subsequent Herodian tetrarchy in the 1st century AD, upon whose life and teachings Christianity was later constructed, but a distinction is made by scholars between 'the Jesus of history' and 'the Christ of faith'.

The term "historical Jesus" refers to the life and teachings of Jesus as interpreted through critical historical methods, in contrast to what are traditionally religious interpretations. It also considers the historical and cultural contexts in which Jesus lived. Virtually all scholars of antiquity accept that Jesus was a historical figure, and the idea that Jesus was a mythical figure has been consistently rejected by the scholarly consensus as a fringe theory. Scholars differ about the beliefs and teachings of Jesus as well as the accuracy of the biblical accounts, with only two events being supported by nearly universal scholarly consensus: Jesus was baptized and Jesus was crucified.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Historical background of the New Testament</span>

Most scholars who study the historical Jesus and early Christianity believe that the canonical gospels and the life of Jesus must be viewed within their historical and cultural context, rather than purely in terms of Christian orthodoxy. They look at Second Temple Judaism, the tensions, trends, and changes in the region under the influence of Hellenism and the Roman occupation, and the Jewish factions of the time, seeing Jesus as a Jew in this environment; and the written New Testament as arising from a period of oral gospel traditions after his death.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jesus</span> Central figure of Christianity

Jesus, also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many other names and titles, was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the central figure of Christianity, the world's largest religion. Most Christians believe Jesus to be the incarnation of God the Son and the awaited messiah, or Christ, a descendant from the Davidic line that is prophesied in the Old Testament.

The quest for the historical Jesus consists of academic efforts to determine what words and actions, if any, may be attributed to Jesus, and to use the findings to provide portraits of the historical Jesus. Since the 18th century, three scholarly quests for the historical Jesus have taken place, each with distinct characteristics and based on different research criteria, which were often developed during each specific phase. These quests are distinguished from earlier approaches because they rely on the historical method to study biblical narratives. While textual analysis of biblical sources had taken place for centuries, these quests introduced new methods and specific techniques to establish the historical validity of their conclusions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christ myth theory</span> Fringe theory claiming that a historical Jesus did not exist

The Christ myth theory, also known as the Jesus myth theory, Jesus mythicism, or the Jesus ahistoricity theory, is the view that the story of Jesus is a work of mythology with no historical substance. Alternatively, in terms given by Bart Ehrman paraphrasing Earl Doherty, it is the view that "the historical Jesus did not exist. Or if he did, he had virtually nothing to do with the founding of Christianity."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Criterion of embarrassment</span> Critical criterion

The criterion of embarrassment is a type of biblical historical analysis in which a historical account is deemed likely to be true if the author would have no reason to invent a historical account which might embarrass them. Certain Biblical scholars have used this as a metric for assessing whether the New Testament's accounts of Jesus' actions and words are historically probable.

Ernst Käsemann was a German Lutheran theologian and professor of New Testament in Mainz (1946–1951), Göttingen (1951–1959) and Tübingen (1959–1971).

John Paul Meier was an American biblical scholar and Catholic priest. He was author of the series A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, six other books, and more than 70 articles for peer-reviewed or solicited journals or books.

The criterion of multiple attestation, also called the criterion of independent attestation or the cross-section method, is a tool used by Biblical scholars to help determine whether certain actions or sayings by Jesus in the New Testament are from the Historical Jesus. Simply put, the more independent witnesses that report an event or saying, the better. This criterion was first developed by F. C. Burkitt in 1906, at the end of the first quest for the historical Jesus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crucifixion of Jesus</span> Jesuss death as described in the gospels

The crucifixion of Jesus was the violent death of Jesus by nailing him to a wooden cross. It occurred in 1st-century Rome's Judaea, most likely in AD 30 or AD 33. It is described in the four canonical gospels, referred to in the New Testament epistles, later attested to by other ancient sources, and is broadly accepted as one of the events to have most likely occurred during his life. There is no consensus among historians on the details.

The historical reliability of the Gospels is evaluated by experts who have not reached complete consensus. While all four canonical gospels contain some sayings and events that may meet at least one of the five criteria for historical reliability used in biblical studies, the assessment and evaluation of these elements is a matter of ongoing debate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sources for the historicity of Jesus</span> Sources about Jesus as a historical figure

Christian sources such as the New Testament books in the Christian Bible, include detailed accounts about Jesus, but scholars differ on the historicity of specific episodes described in the biblical accounts of Jesus. The only two events subject to "almost universal assent" are that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist and was crucified by the order of the Roman Prefect Pontius Pilate.

Scholars have given various interpretations of the elements of the Gospel stories.

The criterion of contextual credibility, also variously called the criterion of Semitisms and Palestinian background or the criterion of Semitic language phenomena and Palestinian environment, is a tool used by Biblical scholars to help determine whether certain actions or sayings by Jesus in the New Testament are from the Historical Jesus. Simply put, if a tradition about Jesus does not fit the linguistic, cultural, historical and social environment of Jewish Aramaic-speaking 1st-century Palestine, it is probably not authentic. The linguistic and the environmental criteria are treated separately by some scholars, but taken together by others.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Meier, John P. (2005). "Criteria: How do we decide what comes from Jesus?". In Dunn, James D. G.; McKnight, Scot (eds.). The Historical Jesus in Recent Research. Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns. p. 129–132. ISBN   1575061007 . Retrieved 15 January 2022.
  2. 1 2 The Historical Jesus and the Final Judgment Sayings in Q (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen Zum Neuen Testament) by Brian Han Gregg (30 June 2006) ISBN   3161487508 page 29
  3. ↑ Who Is Jesus? by Thomas P. Rausch (1 July 2003) ISBN   0814650783 page 36
  4. 1 2 Stanley E. Porter, Reading the Gospels Today (2004), p. 50–51.
  5. ↑ Ernst Käsemann: "Das Problem des historischen Jesus." Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche Vol. 51, No. 2 (1954), p. 125–153.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Theissen, Gerd; Winter, Dagmar (2002). The Quest for the Plausible Jesus: The Question of Criteria. London: Westminster John Knox Press. p. 122, 239–240. ISBN   9780664225377 . Retrieved 17 January 2022.
  7. ↑ Quoted in Tim Widowfield, "Defending the criterion of dissimilarity" (Vridar blog post), 23 April 2014. Retrieved 5 October 2017.
  8. 1 2 Ehrman 1999, p. 91.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Ehrman 1999, p. 93.
  10. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Bart D. Ehrman (2000). "10: More Historical Criteria". Historical Jesus. The Great Courses. Retrieved 15 January 2022.
  11. ↑ Ehrman 1999, p. 93–94.
  12. ↑ Ehrman 1999, p. 94.
  13. ↑ Bellinzoni, Arthur J. (2016). The New Testament: An Introduction to Biblical Scholarship. Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock Publishers. p. 186. ISBN   9781498235129 . Retrieved 15 January 2022.
  14. 1 2 Ehrman 1999, p. 92.
  15. ↑ Oegema, Gerbern S. Apocalyptic Interpretation of the Bible. 2012. pg. 79.

Literature

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.