This is the transcript of Restitutio episode 513 The Historical Jesus with Craig Blomberg This transcript was auto-generated and only approximates the contents of this episode. Sean Finnegan Hey there, I'm Sean Finnegan. And you are listening to Restitutio podcast that seeks to recover authentic Christianity and live. Out today. Have you heard of the quest for the historical Jesus? This has been going. On for two and. 1/2 centuries it has produced a massive amount of literature and occupied the minds of some of the most impressive biblical scholars over the years. What's it all about why do we need to search for the historical Jesus? Isn't he right there in the Gospels? That we find in the New Testament. My guest today is Craig Bloomberg, whose new book, Jesus, the Purifier, lays out a thorough yet accessible survey of the four quests for the historical Jesus he. Also explains why Bible. Believing Christians should care about critical scholarship. Lastly, he describes how his own work on the Gospel of John has revealed some exciting insights that challenge the church today. Here now is episode 513, the historical Jesus and the Gospel of John with Professor Craig Blomberg. Welcome to restitutio. I'm your host, Sean Finnegan, and today I'm talking with Craig Bloomberg, distinguished Professor Emeritus of New Testament at Denver Seminary, where he taught for over 30 years. He's the author of many books, including can we still believe in God? Can we still believe? In the Bible. Neither poverty nor riches. And several commentaries beyond that and I understand you're working on another commentary now. Welcome to the show, professor Craig Bloomberg. So glad to have you today. Craig Blomberg Thank you for having me. Sean Finnegan So today we're talking about your new book, Jesus, the Purifier, and that's published by Baker Academic. You begin your book with a lengthy summary on the quest for the historical Jesus. Now a lot of my audience. Probably hasn't done much business with that listeners to the show tend to come from more of a Bible believing perspective than a an academic, although there are there, you know, it's a mixed audience. But I wonder if you could just describe a little bit why is there a quest for the historical Jesus in the 1st place and just get us kind of get us started? And why you felt like that was important to cover before getting to the the work you did on John? Craig Blomberg There was a German Renaissance man prodigy scholar, concert pianist, medical doctor. Psychiatrist and missionary to West Africa that many people will have heard of, even if they have not heard the title of his book and his name was Albert Schweitzer. He lived into his 90s. I actually remember seeing black and white documentary. Interviews with him when I was in grade school, which means it had to been before I turned 10 because he died 1965, the year I turned 10, stack of white hair going in every direction. And he wrote a book at the turn of the 19th through the 20th century, called the Quest of the Historical Jesus. He surveyed long before access to all the helps for research we have today. Just an astonishing number of late 18th and 19th century writers about Jesus. Mostly German, but then right at the tail end of that period, few French and a few English who were writing. Books about Jesus. And writing from the perspective that we don't just repeat what everybody else in the church has said before us, we don't just. Assume that every word in all four gospels is true and nothing else anywhere is true about Jesus, but we try to function like historians doing research on some ancient historical. Figure. And they came from all kinds of different perspectives and came up with all kinds of different portraits of what Jesus was really like and in wonderful German. Everyone else is wrong and I'm right. Fashion spritzer at the end of the day. And while granting that many people had gotten things partially right, wound up and said, here's what the Jesus of history should be understood to be someone who was passionately driven by the. Belief that the Kingdom of God was in hand that would usher in the end of the world as we understood it. And at First Jesus thought he could do this within his own lifetime, but increasingly realized it was going to take his death to bring. It him out. But even then, what happened after he died was not too much like what he had been hoping for, which was a very millennial, eschatological, apocalyptic brand new World type of Kingdom. Had he been alive? To see what happened, Jesus probably would have been very defeated and disappointed. That book, not only in its publication in multiple languages but in its effect on scholarship throughout the 20th century, was just. Staggering. Schweitzer, in the 1950s on the Nobel Peace Prize for his missionary work. But a lot of people left wing, right wing, center wing. If there is such a thing as a center wing in seminaries and Bible colleges were introduced to Schweitzer's work, and. Anybody who wanted to write about Jesus from a scholarly point of view. If they didn't go back to before Schweitzer, they at least had to start with him and move on from there. Sean Finnegan Yeah, it's interesting. I always kind of connect these two events together in my head, but you have Albert Einstein's discovery or publishing on special relativity in 1905 and then the other Albert. Twice, Sir. In 1906, with the quest for the historical Jesus. Of course, everyone's heard of Einstein, but Schweitzer was no slacker mentally. I mean, this guy was a genuine polymath, with skills in organ concert, organ player, and a medical doctor. Or, you know, definitive Jesus scholar. He got into Paul later on. Who knows what else? You know, he probably had a bunch of other accomplishments as well. Craig Blomberg And probably about twice as tall as Einstein. Sean Finnegan Well, and he was a missionary, and he served the the poorest of the poor. And what became, I don't know how to pronounce it. Gabon. Africa, West Africa. So. Craig Blomberg West, near the town of Lambrini, yes. Sean Finnegan Extraordinary, extraordinary man. Can we back up a little? I know you started with Schweitzer, but let's talk about Hume and Ryan Maris because that seems to be really the starting. Point schweitzer's. Kind of like the end of the first period, right? What happened there? Why? Why were these people? Questing in the first place. Craig Blomberg Hume was a philosopher, Scottish philosopher, as you mentioned in the late 18th century, who became also very famous in influential in his day. Because of a spin that he put on his conviction that. You couldn't believe. In miracles, unlike people who just flat out said, modern science has shown that can't happen. You said no, if we're honest, we can't say that science is per you does not extend that. Fart. But what we can say is that. There is always a more likely explanation. For an alleged miracle than attributing it to the supernatural itself as the product of his day, and if not height, certainly years in which the British Empire seemed locked into world history as a major historical force. He looked around to himself in the Scottish church and in a world that would never have imagined Internet or even any slower, fast news, and saw nothing. Like a miracle. He occasionally heard of reports coming from other parts of the Empire of spectacular miracles among Africans among. South Asians, but always dismiss them as the product of a primitive mind. And people who researched him in the latter part of the 21st century dug up some remarkably racist statements that even some of the supporters weren't aware that he made that these these people. Can't be believed. They can't be educated, they can't be trained. And as a. Result. He won the day in a lot of scientific and philosophical thinking. Today, if you look in the philosopher's wing of the academic Guild, him is largely discredited and saying, you know, that's. That's the property or a bias that there's no way you can say that without examining the actual claims. What the evidence is for. Money. But in his day he was very influential. He was influential over a man named Samuel and Morris. He mentioned him, who was one of the early lighters to try to come up with another explanation for the life and significance of Jesus and. In many ways, Ryan Morris was one of the first to come up with the idea that Jesus was a literal but failed revolutionary helping to overthrow Rome. Sean Finnegan So in a sense, this initial quest was, well, let me ask you, was it a concern to? What rehabilitate Jesus so that the intelligentsia would take the Gospels and the historical Jesus seriously, in light of humans attack on the supernatural? Or was it something else drive? Craig Blomberg It all depended on which writer you were reading. Many people have heard of of Friedrich Clairmont, who wrote around the 1830s and 40s in particular, and and one of his famous philosophical works was entitled on religion for its cultured despisers. And that pretty much does. That summarize what what Schleiermacher was trying. To do others were simply wanting to come out from under the the shackles as they. Would have put. It of centuries old church dogma and rethink issues. For the first time, from cells without presupposing the Bibles and errand without. Supposing that all major church doctrines are true and inviolable, and so some of them were. I suppose we might say much more rebellious in spirit. Sean Finnegan Sort of like applying the Enlightenment to scripture and, you know, finding scientific a scientific approach as opposed to a a, a traditional approach or a dogmatic approach. Craig Blomberg You you had another category that was, that was somewhat a combination of those. Two with the deism, the view that God existed, but that once he created the famous analogy was like the old fashioned days when you wound a watch or a clock, he set everything in motion, but then just took his hands off and. That run there was a dismissal of miracles there also for still different reason that God simply had chosen not to intervene in the normal course of. Sense in a sense, that was a rejection of traditional church dogma, but in another sense, that was also at least. By a number. Of the writers like Aichi Paulus, a way to. Say there are. Rational, natural, naturalistic explanations for what look like miracles. We don't have to do what? Thomas Jefferson so famously did and take his New Testament and cut all the miracle stories out of it. Literally, with the scissors we just need. To interpret them differently. Sean Finnegan So the first quest was an attempt to recover Jesus, the actual historical Jesus from the superstitious accounts of the Gospels. I'm just trying to say it in words that they would have. Craig Blomberg Agreed with the theological overlay of. Centuries that combined history and myth might be the way that many would. Sean Finnegan And then at the end of this period of the mostly the 1800s, Schweitzer comes along and says you're all. Wrong. You're all making a Jesus in your own image. You're looking down a well and seeing your own reflection and projecting that onto Jesus. Of course, he. Never did that. But his work is so devastating, his review of the Questors, who came before him was so devastating that basically a. Lot of people. Remember the period after this. The period which is, you know, leading up to World War One. As a number quest period before the 2nd Quest initiated now in your book you nuanced that and you explained it was a diminution of the quest not and it's not like everyone in the world just stopped thinking about Jesus for. 50 years or. Whatever. I wonder if you could talk about. What? What got things going again with this second quest? Sean Finnegan For the historical Jesus. Craig Blomberg A lot of the towering figures who lived and and wrote and published during the period of both world wars and beyond was a a German New Testament scholar and philosopher by name of Rudolph Bultmann. Boltman was a a faithful Lutheran churchgoer, and he had the reputation. Of actually caring about his students and wanting them to do well, which wasn't necessarily the stereotype of German academics who often tended to be seen. As more aloof. From their students, if if you want to study with me, fine. If you can hack it, fine. Otherwise, Botman also let it some of his understandings of of history with a kind of existential philosophy. Today, I think we would call it post modernism that involved. Living in the moment and what a philosopher named Heidegger had developed, the concept of authentic existence, responding to God as you understood his call on your life in the moments without too much reflection on another life or another world. Of course. Watching the horrific events of two world wars which Germany lost in both instances had a huge effect on this. The church, which in in Germany was primarily either Lutheran or Catholic, had traditionally spoken so much of the life to come that it did not have anything like the kind of effect on social, political, cultural issues of the day that it could have stopped Hitler. Early on, had it wanted to, and by the time some people wanted to, it seemed like it was too late and he was too powerful. It was. There's a group of both months former PhD students. At a reunion at the university where Volkman in Marburg, in Germany in the early 1950s, who got together and gave papers and talked about a new quest for the historical Jesus. So that answers your question of. Where and when it revived, but it really was a a response to Boltman, who went through several phases in his career. But at one point was famous for saying. We can almost know nothing about Jesus other than that he existed. The German word for that is dos with two S's. The German word for the in the neuter gender is dos with warning. The the words for near MERE is blessed and slow. The famous expression was does blossa dot the mere fatness of Jesus? Yeah. Existed. OK, that's about all we could say. And the new question was in many ways saying, WOW, we can say. A lot more. Sean Finnegan Man, that makes the Jesus seminar and and funk and crossing look like a bunch of conservatives to boltman. But you do you do take pains to point out that Boltman was part of the Confessing Church. Yeah. And you know, so we shouldn't make a villain of him. He did do the hard thing. In the time when it cost would cost him the most. So I think we should factor that into our historical assessment, but he. Was big into form criticism and you talked about that a lot in the book and really puzzling over that period prior to the written gospel. Roles. I don't know if you want to mention anything about that in light of the second quest and the role that that played, just to let people know, you know, characterization of that second quest. Craig Blomberg Foreign criticism, which dominated the first half of the 20th century in more skeptical New Testament scholarship. Believed that the. The teachings the accounts of Jesus deeds that were passed along by word of mouth, by anybody's account for at least 30 years or so after Jesus death, would have been embellished would have been rewarded, would have been reapplied. It would have been. Supplemented in all kinds of ways, that meant one has to come to the gospel accounts and like peeling an apple or stripping layers off an. And try to remove all these later appreciations and get back to some kind of historical core that Jesus really said or did. And you mentioned the the Jesus seminar of the 1990s in. In many ways they saw themselves as carrying on that tradition of bold mind and form. Breaks the generation later. By the late 1950s and some of the players in redaction, criticism were the identical individuals counterpart come and and Kazemon, particularly who were key players in the new quest for historical Jesus. The focus had shifted. The four Gospel writers received by the time they came to write accounts of Jesus down. What was it that they wanted to emphasize? How did they arrange their material? How did they highlight key themes? How did they differ one from another? How did they perhaps? Either through other traditions or their own imagination, supplement what they inherit. But at least that allowed for conscious editorial activity that, theoretically could be examined evaluated, rather than just seeing them as compilers of disparate. Bits of information they had gotten from here, there and everywhere. Sean Finnegan And so this second quest typically would date to starting in the 1950s and go up until when. Craig Blomberg Late 70s usual spines already in the 70s that things were changing the early 1980s, was still a period of transition. If you didn't see anyone on the landscape as really making a change. My time a scholar has spent much of his years teaching at Duke, but was in both England and Canada before that to EP. Sanders wrote a book in 1985 called Jesus and Judaism and the title. Says it all, and it's time to. Put Jesus back squarely in the framework of early 1st century Judaism in Israel, which previous scholars to varying degrees have not always adequately done. It's. No surprise that the most influential writers. Distantly, with a few exceptions were German prior to this time and prior to this time you had all the anti-Semitism. Leading up to. And then dominating World War 2 and then not suddenly vanishing the day the Allies liberated occupied Europe but took about a full generation to significantly subside. Sean Finnegan Sorry, so with this now Third quest, we have a shift. Thing toy and I I love this, that they shift towards asking the question. Well, wait a second. Jesus was a Jew, so we need to interpret like newsflash he's been a Jew the whole time. But newsflash, he's a Jew. So like, let's interpret him in light of Second Temple Judaism. And this really led to a lot of insight into understanding Jesus. From a Jewish perspective, you mentioned EP Sanders. I read his Jesus book. What was it called like the historical life of Jesus? Craig Blomberg Well, you get a follow up that says slightly more popular version called the historical figure of Judaism. But before that the the real scholarly Tom was just called Jesus and Judaism. Sean Finnegan Historical figure, yeah. Yeah, perhaps my professor spared me by not having me. Craig Blomberg I probably. Sean Finnegan Read the longer one. Sean Finnegan But anyhow, that's a huge movement of scholarship. The third quest. Could you talk a little bit more about that and? And also let's talk about the criteria of authenticity, because I think that's a second quest thing, right. But it certainly is dominant in the third. Craig Blomberg Carrie felber. Sean Finnegan Quest as well. Craig Blomberg If you go all the way back to the 19th century and you find. People, as Schweitzer rightly to certain degree, pointed out, starting from philosophical perspective, that they're committed to, and then saying let's try to understand Jesus through this lens, because we believe this is. It's the the proper way, even Goldman began. At times, especially in a book called History, the synoptic tradition where he was not nearly as skeptical as saying we can only know that he existed, began to say. Let's develop criteria. Appropriate to the task. As similar to what historians of other ancient figures would. Try to develop. The new quest his students in the 50s, sixties and 70s, we find these further and then analysis of them became a full-fledged cottage industry in the Third quest. What does an alleged teaching of Jesus, a parable, a story of some debate with Jewish leaders? Longer discourse. Individual proverb. A miracle story. What? What do we look for? What would classical historians of ancient Greece and Rome look for? And where do we find things in the Gospels that seem reasonably to pass these tests? Some of them are fairly non controversial. The more that you find independent testimony to an event. On balance and more likely, you can have confidence in it. Unfortunately sometimes people then added in the proviso that well, if something is only mentioned by one author, then we can't trust it. Well, by that criterion we would take much of what exists in our world. Civilization textbooks out because of the nature of of how little evidence has survived for so many things. 15102 thousand 3000 years. Ago one of. The criteria that was was very influential and very much discussed was what became known as the criterion of dissimilarity, or more specifically, double dissimilarity, so that when you found. Jesus saying or doing something. That we just don't have any record out of the pretty voluminous material we have of other ancient rabbis as well as Second Temple Jewish literature. It just does not seem like something that was done or said in Judaism and on top of that it does not seem to have been. A dominant theme of the early church. Like for example the title, son of Man, Jesus's favorite designation for himself, nobody else in the Gospels ever calls him that. It's only he uses for himself. It's not an established title in Judaism. There's an influential passage. And Daniel, in which a person like the son of man Human being is carried on the clouds and ushered to the ancient of days and named for God and and becomes quite a a spectacular figure. But there does not seem to have been. A lot of. Jewish reflection on who this son man was. And then you just don't find people using it in the rest of the New Testament speak of then. Then here's something that's bedrock solid history, Kingdom of God to a certain degree, you can do the same thing with God is certainly king throughout the Old Testament, but you never find that actual phrase. The king who got. You do find it elsewhere in the New Testament, but relatively infrequently compared to the dozens and dozens of uses in the Gospels, especially the Synoptic Gospels. It seems like Paul and John substitute ideas like justification by faith and eternal life for what Jesus and the Synoptics meant by the Kingdom of God. So questions about criteria certainly certainly came to the fore. In a big way. Sean Finnegan So the criteria of authenticity are driven by a skepticism towards the historical reliability of the Gospels, would you say? Craig Blomberg They certainly were initially, but then even more conservative scholars said at times. Well, yeah, there's there's certainly. Tell you to engage in the exercise that doesn't require. Everyone participating begin with the same presuppositions. If we can come up with reasonably good criteria, even if we don't start from a position of historical skepticism, would it be interesting to find out how much would seemingly pass these criteria, and should it turn out to be? That the kind of orthodox Jesus that church has long proclaim. And could be demonstrated even from less than 100% of the gospel information. That would have a strong apologetic value, and so there have been people who have come at. It from that angle also. Speaker Yeah, yeah, I. Sean Finnegan Want to explore that a little bit more? In in a. Minute in your book, you mentioned John Mayer and his three jesuses, the real Jesus, the canonical Jesus, and the historical Jesus. I wonder if you could talk about that a little bit. Just to explain what we're. Doing on the historical side a little bit. Speaker Well, the real. Craig Blomberg Jesus is everything. And then Jesus of Nazareth, the man who lived in Israel in the 1st century, ever did just like the real Sean Finnegan is the sum total. Everything you've done from the first. Try that you. Gave outside your mother's room on the assumption that you cried at some point down to, down to today. And of course, we don't have a comprehensive. Account of the real anyway. Sean Finnegan So that's like the total person. Like, but can I ever get it that? Unless you are that person well, and if. Craig Blomberg You have the. Ability to remember more than any human has ever remembered and cause I don't. For that first couple of years of my life. Either and I. Sean Finnegan Right. So it's sort of like. Craig Blomberg Don't remember a lot. Sean Finnegan God's perspective on the person. So let's talk about the canonical versus the historical. Craig Blomberg Yeah, Canonical simply means everything we can learn about Jesus in the Bible and historical Jesus is. Everything we can learn about Jesus from those parts of the Bible that we believe are probably historically true, along with anything from any other sources. That might impinge on the life of Jesus that we think probably are historically true. Sean Finnegan All right. So a lot of Christians would would stumble on that last. Couple of sentences because we believe that the canonical Jesus is historically true. So what are you talking about? What is probably historically true? Just if you could explain that a little bit. Craig Blomberg That that, which by whatever criteria you have developed, you say. There's there's some kind of. Of collaboration. There's some kind of fit. It doesn't necessarily require saying that. What you can't collaborate isn't true. Although some people have used it that way, it's a way of saying right. My father was junior high in high school, Spanish teacher for 37 years in Rock Island, IL. What can I say about him? That goes beyond my personal memories. And maybe if you want to make the analogy a little better and it also goes beyond the personal memories of. I can't say three siblings because I only had. One, but we'll. Take my brother and a couple of other close relatives. There are things that my brother and I disagree with. About and, of course he's wrong, but and he would say every bit is adamantly I'm wrong. OK, so we'll bracket those not going to settle those debates and it doesn't mean one of us is right. It just means they don't pass the criteria. Let's see what we can find in. The records of the Archives of Rock Island High School in Illinois, and let's see who else we can interview. Who was one of his students, many of whom are still alive, et cetera. So it's not everything that. The four people. Closest to him, remember and claim. But it's also more. Than the four people closest to him remember and claim. Sean Finnegan I mentioned two reasons, and I suspect you have more why believers Bible believing people should care about the quest for the historical Jesus. Could you get into those a little bit? Just kind of explain why somebody who already believes in Jesus and already recognizes the Gospels as reliable? Would have a reason to get into this whole. This whole world, really. Craig Blomberg You're right. I have morning too. So I'll see if I'm remembering the same two that you are. I mean, one answer is, do you ever plan on talking to anybody about your faith who doesn't already share it? If not, you really are considered doing that sometime. That's part of what being a Christian involves. And So what do you say when they say? Well, I don't believe the Bible is all true. You can't just use that as your starting point and then have any further conversation. And the second reason is that you may be like those people today who say. God said it, I believe, and that. Sells it for me. But next year you may start to have doubts. A lot of people do. Then what do you do if you don't have anything else about your previous space to fall back on? And that's what you're now doubt. Sean Finnegan Yeah. Would you say that the canonical Jesus is not just who Jesus was, but also how God, I mean, I'm just going to use Christian language here because I'm a Christian. But you know how God worked through these authors to to what relay truth about Jesus, you know. Sort of theologized and. Addition to. Craig Blomberg That that's part of what I mean. The whole idea of the biblical Canon is itself a theological concept Christian concept. So absolutely. Sean Finnegan So then the historical Jesus is those things about the real Jesus that we can prove using historical methodology. Craig Blomberg Or at least make reasonably probable. Sean Finnegan OK, so that's too strong of a word. Prove that we can apply standard historiography to and have. Some sort of like criteria that others who are not Christians would also agree with, and therefore it gives it a strength in apologetics and evangelism that just saying I believe it, that settles it. This is my Bible. Doesn't you know, that doesn't persuade. Craig Blomberg Who was Mohammed? I don't know. Of any serious historian that doubts that he was incredibly sick. Significant religious man whose life overlapped the late 5 hundreds and early 6 hundreds. And that he was responsible in some unspecified way for the contents of most, if not all, of the Quran. OK. Are you saying then that? You are Muslim and do you believe that this was divinely dictated to Mohammed and that it has been perfectly preserved through the centuries and that everything it teaches, including the places where both agrees with and disagrees? With the Bible. On some of the characters you find in, it is completely true, no? That would be a canonical Mohammed. Sean Finnegan This is a good analogy. Craig Blomberg Same same parallel. Sean Finnegan Alright, well, let's go back to the third quest. The third quest is when I got sucked in sometime sometime in the 2000s. I think my to use like a gateway drug analogy. My first exposure was Bart Hermans Jesus, the apocalyptic prophet. Where he gave a nice summary not as detailed and certainly not at all nuanced like the. One you give in Jesus. The purifier, but it was sort of an entry point where he went through the various German scholars, mostly Germans, and shared the history of it then. Boy, I don't know. I just. Kind of got into reading these Jesus books. You know, I read Dale Allison's book, which I enjoyed Paula Frederickson's EP Sanders. Number of others. I read Lee Strobel. Speaker 'S book all. Sean Finnegan Those books are a case for this case. For that case, for the real Jesus or the history. I don't remember what. It was he was kind of. Craig Blomberg Yeah. Sean Finnegan Just hand waving it. But then, UM, a book I want to ask you about is. Well, then there's Amy. Jill Levine's book, too. But then the book I want to ask you about is Luke Timothy Johnson's book, because that was such a fascinating critique. And I would have to say that that probably contributed to the ending of the third quest if we can even be so bold as to say that Third Quest has ended. I know that's up for debate. But in in Luke Timothy. Johnson's book, I I think maybe it was called the Real Jesus or something like that. He went through and, you know, he was mostly taking the Jesus seminar to task. But he you. Know he goes through all these different jesuses that everyone's using these sophisticated criteria of authenticity to validate or. To discern and he's saying, look, you're all using the same criteria and you're getting a different. Jesus, something's wrong. So I wonder if you could comment a little bit on that, like kind of ending of the third beginning of the Fourth quest period. Craig Blomberg Well, Luke is a gentleman and a a gracious scholar. I've had the privilege of meeting him a few times, so I can't say that I know him well and I would not want to say anything that that would upset him, but I think it might be giving him a little bit too much credit. To say that he helped to end the the third. Plus, and his book came out in 95 and there were just a ranch of Jesus books published. Sean Finnegan There were a lot of books after that. Yeah, I didn't realize it was that early. Craig Blomberg All the way up to about 2010, 2011, now the last decade has seen a significant diminution of Third Quest books, which is why some are talking about a fourth quest. But Johnson's perspective is very much one to be assessed. And and dealt with because. It is very much similar to what you mentioned before, just below. Chief, just follow the canonical Jesus. The historical Jesus will give you so many diverging pictures you're not gonna accomplish anything, and if you pick one of them, who's to say you picked the right one? Now again, I think that's a bit overly pessimistic. One of the other interesting features. Of the publications that that span the very late 90s to the beginning of the 20. Is that in fact, they are remarkably similar in many basic events that they take to being historical about Jesus. There are differing degrees to which people can add on to that, but. The idea that Jesus and early 1st century Jew, whose life intersected with a prophet by the name of John the Baptist, who was baptized by John, who preached about the arrival of the Kingdom. And as a general headline over his ministry, the same as John did preached repentance for the forgiveness of sins he illustrated and challenged people through all kinds of parables about the present and future coming Kingdom. He. Had conflicts with various groups. Of more traditional Jewish leaders over interpretation of the law of the Torah, and especially the pharisaic conditions that had been given to the mosaic law that he probably administered both in Galilee and in Judea, but was viewed. As a Galilean, much more so with some of the distinctives of the that part of Israel only just scratching the. Purpose in in what I'm saying. And then you can go through each phase of his life. All the way through. The crucifixion and and find some remarkable agreement which itself may be one of the reasons that the third class began to Peter out because people were saying right. That's about as far as we can take it. If we're going to use these criteria, and yes, we can tweak the criteria and we can. Talked about certain passages, certain themes. By 20/10/2011, what was unheard of in the mid 20th century was now commonplace. Jesus actually did think of himself as some kind of a countercultural Messiah and. If not all the exact titles that he appeared to apply to himself, like son of God or Lord or Christ, certainly implicitly through his behavior through his intimate. Relationship with his Heavenly Father through the remarkable authority with which he made his proclamations with the ways that he appeared to accept worship dot dot dot, dot, dot. Pretty robust opinion of himself as the heavenly scent and times. Final Envoy eschatological, prophet slash, son of David Slash Messiah. If both mine is in his grave, then so. Sean Finnegan At the end. Of the the third quest, you have kind of a convergence. Is that what you're saying where people? Are kind of. Coming to somewhat of an agreement on the broad strokes, at least of like, all right, this is. Where we're at. Sean Finnegan But then. Sean Finnegan The Gospel of John, you know, gets gets. Discovered it's been there. The whole time. But the usefulness for the historical quest of the Gospel of John Paul Anderson and his SBL group, what what was that called? John. Jesus, John. What? What is it? Craig Blomberg Right. John Jesus in history, yeah. Sean Finnegan John Jesus in history so share. A little bit about that movement. If if you I don't wanna hold you here. If you gotta go but. Yeah, just in a brief way share about that and lead us in a little bit to the second-half of Jesus, the purifier. I guess people have to buy the book if they want to see your exciting conclusions of and introducing John into the the mix. Craig Blomberg Or or at least find electronic form or. Whatever, but yeah. Another John Cambridge based Anglican Bishop named John Robinson, the 1950s and 1960s, who on the one hand first became best known for book called Honest to God. In which he. Seem to be questioning a lot of the standard approaches to the deity of Christ. This would have been the time of all of the ideological upheavals in the 1960s which I'm so. Sean Finnegan The myth of God Incarnate. Books were out there too. Craig Blomberg At the same time he began writing on the side about the Gospel of John and just about complete a large book, when he suddenly passed away in 1980s, the colleague wrapped it up and published it posthumously, in which he said we have. Inappropriately neglected. Lots of information in the 4th. Of the four gospels that. Passes historical criteria every bit as well, and occasionally maybe even better than a lot of the material in Matthew, Mark and Luke. This came on the heels of another blockbuster book called Redating. The New Testament came out late 70s. And Rich Robinson argued that every single book, including all of John's writings, which not even consider. It's we're saying this about could be dated before the fall of Jerusalem in 8070. And so you. Had put Robinson, are we interested in the conservative Robinson or Liberal Robinson? Sean Finnegan Well, the priority of John is certainly an important. Book for our our topic here. Craig Blomberg It is that spawned ever growing trickle. It probably turned into a nice dream or a book. Never a full-fledged river of studies on John and history until. And the beginning of this century. Think it was 2002 or thereabouts when a man who had already shown considerable interest in John and more evangelical Christian, a Quaker member of the Friends movement teaching at George Fox University in Oregon, Paul Anderson organized the seminar. That brought a wide swath of scholars to the table. Not. All of them. At all agreeing with him, but many of them. Thinking that yes, there was more to be recovered from John. Over the next 10 years or so, they too began to amass a list, and not everyone was identical. But the idea that Jesus Ministry actually did last about three years, give or take, which you get only from John, that there was a period before. His major public ministry in Galilee. That included the events that we have in John one through 4, if not everything that's said there at least P core of of each of the episodes that are described. The idea that Jesus and John about this. Overlapped in ministry much more so than you would guess if you just read Matthew, Mark and Luke that perhaps Jesus himself, maybe just at the beginning of his ministry, but maybe for longer through his disciples baptized people. That issues involving water and ritual purity, hence Jesus, the purifier loomed much larger, especially early on in Jesus Ministry, and that those then gradually morphed into concerns for. Moral purity, as more significant than ritual purity. That there were Jewish, literary and rhetorical forms that could be discerned behind the longer sermons in the Gospel of John, so that we don't just write those off as too different from anything in the synoptics to be accepted. That in his passion narrative details such as Rome having taken away the right of capital punishment from the Jews, explaining why the Jews who have already capital verdict of blasphemy had to involve pilot, and the the Roman government. Chronological differences or so it was argued that you find in China and again the dot dot dot keeps the list going for a while that these could be seen as likely historical and needed to be integrated into any historical Jesus word. Sean Finnegan Very good. And the exciting discovery, if I could put it that way, that that you're presenting here. Is that when you follow this method which to me was kind of fresh because I'm more exposed to the third questors and like the Super heavy synoptic emphasis, but like this this method of subtracting out from the gospel of John the main themes, you know, you're left with this this sort of. Accidental information if that's a good way to put it, that almost everyone would have to agree. It's historical, and when you just sort of concentrate that what he what he's not focusing on and you concentrate that you're like oh. Wow, this is. Like Jesus must have really presented himself and thought of himself and acted in a way that you know, really emphasized purification and that has implications for the church today, right? Craig Blomberg It does, and it's not as if you come up with something that contradicts or even is foreign to the synoptic Gospels. It takes what rises at best to the level of a a fairly minor motif in the Synoptic Gospels, and says. Maybe this was a bigger deal than we realized, especially early on for Jesus. We read the story of the healing of the leopard. That's in all three synoptic gospels where Jesus deliberately touches the man. And thereby according to not just per say tradition, but the laws of Leviticus themselves encourage uncleanness. But no, he cleanses the leopard. Instead, he allows the hemorrhaging woman to touch the hem of his garment, making him on. But no, he feels that power is gone out from him to cleanse the woman. He touches the corpse of Jeris's daughter. This this is the guy who has already showed he can heal somebody at a distance. Just say. The word and he'll be healed. It's not like this was part of his routine. He didn't have to do it. There must be a point that he's demonstrating, but. We don't think. We have no analogy in modern Western culture to ritual and clean, so don't think about this element, he pulls Jeris's daughter up. But. Lo and behold. Instead of his hands becoming leftist has sometimes happened to Old Testament people who touch their own things. She is awake. She is risen from the dead in a much more limited context of Jesus meals. I wrote a book in the in the mid 2000s called Contagious Holiness Jesus Meals with sinners where he associates with all around people but again. Believes that holiness can be exuded in such a winsome way that it actually becomes more catching more contagious than the corruption that his society feared would come from all of these sinners. That was a very narrow study. Just if Jesus meals didn't even include the Lord's supper. Sean Finnegan And and was that primarily focused on the synoptics? Craig Blomberg And it was a. Little tiny bit from child, but not much. Sean Finnegan So this is kind of rounding out the rest of that material, even though that's not what your intention was, but it was the result of the methodology. Craig Blomberg It really it. Let's try. That's exactly right. What would happen if the church, especially as a church? I understand why parents are concerned. They're teenagers, hang out with the round long crowd. They're going to be. Inappropriately influenced by them. I'm not talking about. That. But once the church as a community. Of enough mature people who are not going to be tempted to go off and become drug addicts and prostitutes and extortioners, et cetera, et cetera. Were to find ways as every now and then you hear about people doing to intentionally associate with those folks. For good and godly intentions, it's largely underutilized vision and mission. Sean Finnegan Yeah, I love it. I love it. It's so powerful. You're ending of the book. So good. Love the questions. Love the challenge that you lay down for the church. And you, you, you end by saying, see this historical Jesus stuff does produce some fruit, you know, so. There it's kind of. Kind of like an apologetic ending for the whole enterprise of Bible believing people jumping in and participating in the. Field I think that's that's well said. So how can people learn more about? You or follow your work. Craig Blomberg Back on Amazon and find a ton of things I've written, I don't have a a personal website, so. Sean Finnegan Do you have some classes on logos or? Craig Blomberg There are some things on logos that have done. There are some video series that I've done both for them as well As for Zondervan, with some of the books that I've written for Zondervan, there are accompanying video series, but I'm one of these people who would rather spend my time researching and writing, and others figure out. How to disseminate it and? Popularize it and learn the latest technology. Sean Finnegan And how many books do you think you've written? Just guess. Craig Blomberg If you count those that I have co-authored or edited, I think we're just about 30. Sean Finnegan 30 books. Holy cow. That's incredible. Craig Blomberg But but I'm not Indian. Sean Finnegan You're not what? Craig Blomberg Even though I like to say holy cow also. Speaker You're not. OK. Sean Finnegan Well, thanks for talking with me today. I so appreciate your time. Craig Blomberg Thank you for having me. Sean Finnegan Well, it brings this interview to a close. What did you think? Come on over to restitutio.org and find Episode 513 the historical Jesus and the Gospel of John and leave your feedback there. Would love to hear your thoughts. Also, if you'd like to hear another episode with Craig Blomberg in it, I I played out a presentation he did years ago. Based on his book, neither poverty nor Riches, which essentially surveys of biblical theology of handling money in the scriptures and believe it or not, that is. Podcast #4. Where I played out that lecture and this is a topic that is totally unrelated to the quest for the historical Jesus, but kind of gives you a sense for who Craig. Bloomberg is that he is not just interested in the scholarly world, he's also interested in the practical world as well. In this presentation, he suggested the idea of a graduated tithe, whereby you assess your giving at the end of the year or the beginning of the year whenever, and you say to yourself, can I increase this by a percentage by a a small amount? And you have to listen to the podcast episode. But, like, really an astounding faith position that Bloomberg has staked out there for himself and his. Family as far as giving goes and really has served as an example to me personally. Where I've done this each year and I have been able to increase little by little like a frog and a kettle, and this is something we did talk about before I started the recording, but I figured I'd mentioned it here in case any of you are interested. In hearing more, Craig Bloomberg just look at podcast #4 biblical theology of finance and, and I think his words there are very practical and helpful for all of us today as well. Well, that's it for today. Thanks everybody for listening in to the end. Catch you next week if you'd like to support this ministry, you can do that at restitutio.org. We'll see you next time. And remember the truth. Has nothing to fear.