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The Context of James D. G. Dunn's Jesus Remembered

The Enlightenment

The (a) Newtonian scientific paradigm which viewed creation, or nature, as a carefully

crafted machine governed by absolute and universal laws was chiefly responsible for shifting

attitudes about man and theology. Other contributing factors were (b) the decided dissatisfaction

with religious authority (partly due to the many wars of religion), (c) Copernicus’ discovery that

the earth was in fact not the center of the cosmos, (d) Galileo’s turning of the telescope toward

the heavens, and (e) the positivistic nature of Cartesian and mathematical philosophies and

sciences. Each of these contributions worked together to transform the ethos of the seventeenth

century from one of religious “superstition,” into one of reason, despite much of the theological

convictions and Christian devotion many Enlightenment architects carried.

It was believed that the mind of man could afford near-omniscience. Perhaps more

than other influencing factors Newtonian science, which stretched human understanding to limits

never before known, was responsible for the rationalistic ethos of the age. Newton's scientific

revolution had brought remarkable structural understanding to the universe, which allowed man

to categorize and theorize understanding and knowledge of the natural world. Consequently, it

was thoughtfully believed that human omniscience was an attainable goal. Reason, therefore,

comprises the first principle of the Enlightenment. The second principle, autonomy, was really

the recognition that all men had the ability to reason. The mind of the reasoning individual, then,

became prized over the authority of the church.

A third principle of knowledge established during the Enlightenment was also a

consequence of Newtonian science, nature. The natural world was thought carefully to be

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governed by universal laws, and with Newton’s discovery of these laws a foundation for natural

and absolute knowledge was anticipated. This emphasis on the natural world and its lawful

structure led to a championing of empirical methods of understanding, with the result that the

natural sciences, competing with theological sciences, came to form the basis of human

knowledge. But natural laws in Newtonian thought precluded the possibility of divine

intervention in history. Naturalism consequently fueled a fourth principle, harmony. All thought

and understanding, like the universe, would inevitably yield uniformity. Each scientific

discipline would necessarily be in harmony with another.

Each of these principles, reason and autonomy, nature and harmony, worked together

to provide an unmistakable ethos. With the omniscience of human understanding believed to be

within reach a belief of inevitable progress resulted. The ascension of anthropology was really a

recognition of man's potential. Man was wonderfully made and possessed a remarkable

cognitive faculty.

But these rapid changes in the ethos of the age, man's “coming of age,” came at

considerable costs to the church and theology. Long held beliefs about Scripture were constantly

called into question: (1) the “fall” of man and the nature of human depravity, (2) revelation, (3)

miracles, and (4) Jesus' divinity. Again, despite the pious and even theological emphases of

several enlightenment scientists, reason became god of the age and this meant the crowning of

man, with the strong possibility of the dethronement of God. With every advance in natural

understanding, the theological teachings of the church came to be viewed suspiciously, or even

grievously. Man was to be viewed as something positive and wonderful, given the leaps in

understanding reason brought. How could he, then, be a depraved creature? The church's

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teaching on depravity actually worked to restrain human potential for understanding. With the

recognition of universal laws governing the natural world, the consequences of this for revelation

and miracles was obvious: there could be none. And if God could not act from outside upon the

created world, how could he become a man and die on behalf of sinful man, and rise from the

dead?

Therefore, with the rapid advances in the natural sciences came thoughtful and critical

reflection on the life of Jesus of Nazareth, or the historical Jesus behind the gospels of the

Christian faith, and a ditch recognizably developed between Christian faith and historical truth.

For Gotthold Lessing (1729-1781) this “ugly, broad ditch” was a wedge between religious truth

and historical truth, the latter of which was the sort open to study, the former an unquestioned

necessary truth of reason. Lessing posthumously published the work of Hermann Samuel

Reimarus (1694-1768), which is generally considered the beginning of studies on the historical

Jesus.

David Friedrich Strauss (1808-1874) continued in the vein of Reimarus. Where

contradictions between Holy Scripture and the universal laws of the reigning scientific paradigm

were discernible, the historicity of the former was called into question and frequently dismissed,

although attempts were sometimes made at a natural causation for biblical miracles. These two

thinkers lay the cognitive foundation for what is now considered the Liberal Quest for the

historical Jesus.

The Liberal Quest

This first quest for the historical Jesus owed much of its thinking to Immanuel Kant

(1724-1804) and Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834). What each attempted was to provide an

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area of locating the truths of Christian faith, such as the resurrection of Jesus Christ from death,

in an intellectual safety zone free from disfigurement by naturalism. For Kant, this was in the

realm of morality; Schleiermacher, religious consciousness. “The influence of Kant is evident in

the description of the work of the leading Liberal Protestant theologian (Albrecht Ritschl [1822-

1889]) as 'the theology of moral values'.”1 Adolf von Harnack's (1851-1930) own essence of

Christianity was popularized as the “fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man,” which are

both, of course, moral ideals.2

Certain axioms generated by the first quest proved very persistent in future studies.

They were threefold: (1) The dismissing of John's gospel as historically reliable due to its certain

theological compromises was largely the work of F. C. Baur (1792-1860). This criticism

continues to frame present discussion; from henceforth historical Jesus research would operate

largely from the synoptic gospels. (2) The second axiom, that of Markan priority, was provided

by Heinrich Holtzmann (1832-1910), and has, since its inception, proved firmly irreversible. (3)

Third and lastly, though not necessarily axiomatic as its existence is frequently challenged, was

the hypothetical existence of a “Q” source, which was thought to be responsible for the material

common to both Matthew and Luke (but where they departed from Mark). B. H. Streeter is

usually given credit for this finding.

Despite its advances the liberal quest was brought to an abrupt end by the work of two

thinkers, (1) Johannes Weiss (1863-1914) and (2) Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965). By

respectively (re)introducing apocalypticism and eschatology into the discussion, it was said that

Jesus wrongly anticipated an eschatological event of vindication from God; an event that never

1James D. G.Dunn, Jesus Remembered (Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2003) 36.2Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 38.

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occurred. Having made Jesus, then, an apparent failure, a man abandoned by God the father on

the wheel of time and history, their work effectively ruined any reason for an intellectual faith

commitment to a liberal portrait of Jesus.

The Second Quest

Rudolf Bultmann (1884-1976) attempted to recover an historical Christ for the church,

but also at considerable cost. Following Karl Barth's (1886-1968) earlier work on the word of

God as existential encounter, Bultmann sought “secure refuge for faith in the moment of

existential encounter with the word of proclamation, an area for faith invulnerable indeed to the

challenge and acids of historical criticism.”3 For Bultmann, the church encounters the word of

God preached in an existential moment of confrontation such that “the gulf between his negative

historical-critical findings and his very positive faith in the kerygmatic Christ” is resolved “by

means of an existentialist hermeneutic.”4 Bultmann's historical method further involved form

criticism and the “demythologizing” of the kerygma; a peeling away of its mythological husk to

obtain the kernel of Christian kerygmatic truth lying beneath.

With renewed emphasis on the kerygma of the gospels the students of Bultmann, Ernst

Käsemann (1906-1998) in particular, emphasized the dangers in “posing a too sharp

discontinuity between the historical Jesus and the Christ of faith.”5 The way was being prepared

for the “possibility of a christology 'from below'.”6 Theology was creeping back into the

historian's guild.

3Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 77.4Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 77.5Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 79.6Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 80.

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James Dunn and The Third Quest

If the second quest was marked by a theological turn, the third is marked by renewed

interest in the Jewishness of Jesus. From an early period historical Jesus studies proceeded by

sharply distinguishing Jesus from his Jewish context. But Jesus was, among other truths, a Jew,

and the work of scholars such as E. P. Sanders (1937-) decidedly channeled further historical

Jesus studies towards first century Judaism. His book Jesus and Judaism is regarded “as the real

beginning of the third quest.”7 The third quest was also the first to recognize Judaisms (plural) of

the second temple period.

N. T. Wright (1948-) and James Dunn himself (1939-) are discussion partners picking

up the historical mantle of Jesus as Jew provided by Sanders. Though they frequently

compliment one another, they are not without important distinctions. N. T. Wright's emphasis,

expressed in his desire to portray a theological history for interpreting the gospels, rests in his

“fixed idea” of “return from exile.”8 But few historians seem to have followed Wright in his

theological portrait of biblical history, although it is a welcome attempt.

Though we have now arrived at Dunn, it should be observed that neo-liberalism has

made a strong return in the mostly American “Jesus Seminar.” Thinkers in this group have a

clear liberal agenda: “Entirely in the spirit of the original quest, [Robert Funk] takes the

distinction between the historical Jesus and the Christ of faith as axiomatic and sees it as the goal

of his endeavors, and those of the Jesus Seminar.”9 Other thinkers in this seminar are Marcus

Borg and John Dominic Crossan.

7Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 89.8This is Dunn's criticism of Wright; Jesus Remembered, 91.9Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 58.

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Faith and History and Hermeneutics (Dunn's Content)

Much of the context section above is also a large part of Dunn's content (as the

footnotes demonstrate). I will proceed in the content section below, then, to engage the

historiographical interests of Part One of Jesus Remembered. These threefold interests are (1)

faith, (2) history and (3) hermeneutics.

The NT historian simply cannot ignore faith. Should he try, he would have very little

history for his project. One very large obstacle for the liberal quest was the realization that faith

was a “factor which could not be ignored, the sobering realization that a historical inquiry into

the life of Jesus had after all to take account of faith.”10 From its earliest inception, Christianity

wed faith with history. The two belong together as husband and wife. But how the two belong

together introduces the third element, hermeneutics. This is a delight that Dunn offers readers, as

he aims to present a hermeneutic that respects both, and gives each its rightful place in their

matrimony with one another:

I have argued that the key issue in any attempt to talk historically about Jesus of Nazareth has been and continues to be the tension between faith and history, or more accurately now, the hermeneutical tension between faith and history.11

The importance for Christianity of studying the historical Jesus is obvious.

Christianity claims itself historical and that it rests upon the certainty of Jesus' resurrection. If

Christianity is defeated on historical grounds, then “we are of all people most to be pitied” (1

Cor. 15:19).

10Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 49.11Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 125.

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Dunn and Faith

Dunn shows some admiration for Martin Kähler, and for good reason. Kähler

introduces the distinction between Historie and Geschichte. Both words basically mean

“history,” but Historie “he understands as the bare data, independent of any significance which

might be placed on them.”12 “Geschichte, on the other hand, denotes history in its significance,

historical events and persons which attract attention by reason of the influence they have

exercised.”13 Dunn continues:

Kähler's central claim, then, is that the Christ of the Bible is Jesus seen in his significance. For Kähler there is no such thing in the Bible as 'the historical Jesus', a figure devoid of significance. . . The Liberal lives of Jesus had attempted to get back to a Jesus behind the Gospel texts, by stripping away the interpretative layers and (presumed) distortions. Kähler responded by arguing that this could not be done: the Gospels' picture of Jesus is impregnated with interpretation throughout.14

Dunn sees in the work of Kähler a way forward. Realizing that we have no

uninterpreted and bare data regarding Jesus of Nazareth, the historian is left with the theological

sources handed down to us by the eyewitnesses. To interpret Jesus apart from this faith

perspective would necessarily leave the historian's biography implausible. For, to be plausible

the historian would need a Historie, or a “de-theologized” witness. Which is a witness that does

not exist. We have only Geschichte.

Dunn and History

To return again to Reimarus and Strauss, Dunn makes the point that their strict

Enlightenment thinking aimed to explain Christianity apart from the witnessed miracles of Jesus

12Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 49.13Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 49.14Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 49-50.

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“on purely natural grounds.”15 Reimarus felt that the passages of Holy Scripture which made

miraculous claims were full of contradictions.16 And Strauss used the term “myth” to identify

these claims in the gospel narratives, and felt they were the inventions of creative apostles.17

However, “in their flight from the Christ of dogma,” Dunn states, “both Reimarus and Strauss

had not escaped into anything that might be called objective history, but simply into a different

ideology, the ideology of rationalism on the one hand and the ideology of idealism on the

other.”18

Despite the work of Reimarus and Strauss, the eventual historical-critical methodology

that found common acceptance within the guild was provided by Ernst Troeltsch (1865-1923).

There are three principles: (1) Probability; which is the notion that knowledge is probable at best,

never certain. (2) Analogy; indicating that the universal laws governing nature remain

unchanged. And (3) correlation; meaning the complex and holistic interrelatedness of history.

Troeltsch's historical-critical method “became the tool which was to dominate the quest for the

historical Jesus for 150 years.”19

However, taking place at a fundamental level through the use of these criticisms was

the positivism belonging to the natural sciences historically tuned (the principle of analogy), and

the Enlightenment belief that history itself was a grand narrative of scientific progress (the

principle of correlation). Back of all this, again, stood Newtonian science, which championed,

15Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 31.16Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 30.17Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 32-33.18Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 34.19Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 27.

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. . . the universal laws of motion and gravity, that the cosmos is a single harmonious structure of forces and masses. . . and that the world is like an intricate machine following immutable laws, a closed system of cause and effect.20

Dunn and Hermeneutics

There are several components to Dunn's historiography as the following tertiary

headings reveal. It is a sort of piecemeal method involving bits of epistemology, rationalism,

hermeneutics, and memory.

Probability. To begin with, Dunn, like any good historian accepts, Troeltsch's

principle of probability. The point here is that facts about historical events can only be probable

at best, never certain. To explore the usefulness of probability, take for example the recent

Roman coins unearthed beneath the Herodian retaining wall in Jerusalem. The coins in question

date to about AD 17-18, stamped as they are with Valerius Gratus' image. They were located

near a mikveh partially submerged beneath an outer stone of the Herodian retaining wall.

Obviously, coins dated younger than Herod's wall which are found beneath his wall puts some

stress on the claims as to the age of the wall. But it was commonly held by classical historians

that the retaining wall was completed under Herod's rule. Are we then to discredit the wall, the

mount, even the second temple itself, as being built by Herod? Perhaps we could say the

retaining wall was completed after Herod's death, but nevertheless attributed to him since it was

his ambitious project to beautify Jerusalem, even all of Palestine. This is not uncommon in the

classical world, and stands as a valid theory. The question though is, Which is most probable?

In truth, we can never know exactly when or how a coin which post-dated Herod's lifetime

20Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 27-28.

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arrived at its final resting place beneath an exterior stone of the Herodian retaining wall.

Historians, rather, evaluate each case in light of the data and choose the most probable.

Analogy and Correlation. It should be recalled that analogy and correlation are both

Troeltsch's critical principles significantly wed to the scientific positivism of the Enlightenment.

Each boasted Newtonian laws of nature thought to be universal and binding, precluding any

possibility of violation. Correlation is legitimated as a rationalist understanding of history in its

complex interrelatedness, inclusive of a closed system of causal forces. Obviously, Dunn has

some qualification for these two criticisms if they are to be employed successfully for recovering

the historical Jesus standing behind the Scriptures. Primarily he aims to deconstruct them of

their prejudices against “the novum.”21 Can the historian's work recognize something new, or is

every datum to be found as causally tied without remainder to a closed system of events? For the

Christian historian the concerns are obvious. God speaks and acts. Isaiah 43:19 states, “Behold,

I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” If Christian literature is

divorced from the novum, what is left of biblical history?

Analogy and correlation have also at times cynically operated in the history of

interpretation. Biblical miracles aside, ordinary but still wonderful events of inspiring literature

and noble actions are frequently assailed by critical historians simply for their characteristic

virtue and beauty. It is taken as near axiomatic that the the uninspiring events of everyday

modern life should be understood prescriptively for the historical veracity of all recorded history.

But this cynicism antagonizes the many possible feats of nobility in history and the inspiring and

endearing impression some have made on the historical record.

21Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 70.

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Pardoning Jesus for a moment, Shakespeare's poetry, Caesar's fateful speech at the

bank of the Rubicon, the seemingly anointed life of George Washington with his bullet-holed

coat but preserved person, Luther's boldness before the Diet of Worms, etc. Is all such history

improbable simply for its infidelity to the mundane?22

Further, are we to dismiss always all hints of truth in legends such as King Arthur and

his exemplar knights gathering around a late Roman table? Are men not capable of such

nobility? A teenage Joan of Arc not capable of courage? Historical-criticism would make just as

bold assertions dismantling these persons and events, no doubt, as it has the Scripture's teachings

of Jesus of Nazareth.

Plain Meaning. One particularly interesting component of Dunn's historiography is

“plain meaning.” It would seem to go unsaid that any thinking historian desires “plain

meaning,” therefore what Dunn means by this is not entirely clear. Here, I will allow him to

summarize himself: “Here my concern is to emphasize that the precedence accorded to the text

has to include the primary task of listening to the text, the goal of letting it speak so far as

possible in its own terms.”23 It seems Dunn is contrasting plain meaning with post-modern

literary criticisms such as a reader-response hermeneutic, or deconstructionism. This seems clear

from the following: “Despite theorists denying the referentiality of texts outside of themselves,

22The reader will recognize the author's indebtedness to Dunn's quotation of Gadamer, Jesus Remembered, 106, for much of the thoughts of this section.

23Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 115.

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nowhere have practicing historians given up the belief that language refers to reality; texts are

still viewed as vehicles for communication of consciously held ideas.”24

Hermeneutical Spiral. Keeping continuity with literary criticism, Dunn next

undertakes a self-conscious text-based hermeneutic immunized against radical post-modernism.

Dunn rightly recognizes that “there cannot be any such thing as presuppositionless exegesis.”25

This reveals his historiographical method as self-conscious. He shows some sentiment for Hans

Gadamer's Truth and Method which envisions apprehending the meaning of the text as a fusion

of horizons.26 Unlike the deferring of meaning in contemporary literary theory, Dunn states that

the hermeneutical circle is better seen as a spiral. It proceeds towards meaning instead of

circling back on itself ad infinitum.

Critical Realism. Not unlike N. T. Wright's groundbreaking volume The New

Testament and the People of God, Dunn makes use of Critical Realism. This is the

epistemological component of his historiographical method. The parent architect of critical

realism is Bernard Lonergan, but its usefulness as appropriated to the NT was the achievement of

Ben Meyer's book Critical Realism and the New Testament. Wright uses Meyer as foundational

for his own reworking of critical realism which terminated in a sort of hybrid epistemology

involving the former in addition to narrative criticisms and a sociological recognition of “story-

based knowing.” Dunn departs from the work of Wright here. Though Wright spent roughly

one-hundred fifty pages developing this critically realistic historiography, Dunn spends two.

There will be much to

24Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 116.25Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 121.26Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 123.

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criticize Dunn for as a result of this, but we will refrain from such an effort until the evaluative

analysis section.

Essentially, Critical Realism is fashioned in response to the aging historical positivism

of Enlightenment naturalism. It is “critical” because it recognizes the challenges of knowing an

object, challenges such as the post-modern critique, but still “realism” since it proceeds towards

the object of knowledge. It is, according to Lonergan, a self-conscious “conjunction of

experience, understanding, and judging.”27

Memory. Here the reader first encounters what lies at the heart of Dunn's

historiography. Unable to be recovered is the historical Jesus himself, we can only account “for

what he was remembered doing or saying by his first disciples.”28 It is the significance of Jesus

that is written of in the NT witness, not the historical person apart from anything meaningful

accomplished in his life. Further, Dunn sees in the virtues of memory, recalling Gadamer, the

fusion of “the horizons of past and present, by making the past present again.”29 It is “not Jesus

himself, but the remembered Jesus” Dunn explains.30

Faith, History and Hermeneutics Concluded

Dunn has all the ingredients desirable for contemporary Christian historiography:

hermeneutics, epistemology, rationalism, memory and the omission of presuppositions against

miracles. He is interested in, as a sympathetic historian, fidelity to the witnesses. He frequently

points out, à la Martin Kähler, that there are no others. The Jesus of history is only revealed to

27Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 110; quoting Lonergan.28Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 130.29Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 130.30Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 131.

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us in his significance. If historiography is to make any rational attempt at knowing Jesus of

Nazareth, its hermeneutic must involve recognizing that Jesus is always an object of both faith

and history. You cannot drive a wedge between the two and recover a Jesus who never inspired

devotion and faith. Through a sound hermeneutic, the two can be brought together.

Distastefully, Dunn writes,

That will no doubt be part of the reason for the failure of history and faith to bed well together: hermeneutics is the too little acknowledged third partner – a somewhat uncomfortable ménage à trois.31

Dunn's Historiography: An Evaluative Analysis

Sympathetic Thoughts

There are two virtues of Dunn's historiography I wish to point out. (1) That he

carefully qualifies the historical-critical principle of analogy to make room for revelation, or as

he calls it, the novum. (2) And how his hypothesis of an underlying oral tradition stemming from

the remembered Jesus provides a formidable alternative to the complex discussions of literary

dependence.

The Novum. Dunn has succeeded in showing that the principle of analogy was indeed

wed to the spirit of the naturalistic age. The liberal quest ended, not with any advances in

understanding the historical Jesus, nor with a consensus, but more or less with the question,

“Why should we continue to be Christian?” The blows to the first quest given in the work of

Weiss and Schweitzer, who revealed the liberal Jesus as a failed prophet, ruined any liberal

aspirations of establishing Jesus as a credible moral teacher who merited the devotion of

Christians everywhere throughout history. Compounding this failure was early twentieth-century

31Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 99.

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bloodshed. The NT ethic was surrendered when Jesus Christ as a religious authority was

sundered between faith and history. Dunn successfully shows how the liberal efforts to remove

the faith perspective of the NT authors destabilized the very truths of history they sought. Only

by bringing history and faith together again can a credible historical Jesus be revealed.

Oral Tradition. The main thrust of Jesus Remembered centers on disciple memory

leading to oral traditions, eventuating in the written gospels of the NT complete with their

literary divergences. This thesis is more credible than alternatives because it provides the fluid

foundation which the complexity of the divergent NT testimonies need if we are to account for

them, something pure literary dependence can resolve only through very exaggerated efforts.

Keeping with Markan priority, the explanations for disharmony between Matthew and

Luke hypothetically answered by a Q source, can now be answered more credibly through

Dunn's proposal. Q as a written document remains a tentative explanation and its existence so

far is unprovable. It is illogical to presuppose an additional written component when the data

can be resolved more simply by presupposing an oral tradition. To do so multiplies complexity

and retards certainty. Therefore, the fluid foundation of oral tradition remains the best sought for

explanation for gospel variances as it simplifies the matter by eliminating the need for additional

hypothetical written sources. Though Dunn does not deny literary dependence in Q, or make

claims against the existence of Q.

Unfavorable Aspects of Dunn's Work

There are also two criticisms of Jesus Remembered to discuss. (1) The first is

methodological and consists of several points, chief of which is the unclear relationship between

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Critical Realism and memory. (2) The second offers some critical reflection on the nature of the

tradition and how it unfolds in history. Here Dunn noticeably equivocates some.

Critical Realism and Memory. Perhaps the leading disappointment with Dunn's

method is the limited discussion he affords Critical Realism – he provides only two pages of

discussion in all of Part One (136 pp.), far from the rich one-hundred-plus pages of treatment his

peer N. T. Wright affords. But as an epistemology it clearly merits more attention. He declares

that the procedure of Critical Realism outlined should have obvious advantages for studying the

historical Jesus; but such a claim expects too much of even the most careful reader.32 The reader

is therefore left with several questions.

First, what is the relationship between the epistemology and memory? Second, in

what ways does Critical Realism inform the the application of memory? Third, how is it that

memory is better served by Critical Realism? What is it about the epistemological nature of

Critical Realism that compliments memory as an object of historical knowledge? For N. T.

Wright, Critical Realism is adapted to narrative-criticism in a careful and thorough treatment.

He spends a great deal of effort to explicate story-based knowing and how it is able to overcome

the challenges of modernity and post-modernity. Wright further outlines the story in which he

locates the historical Jesus and gains access to him as such through applying his narrative

Critical Realism. It seems Dunn uses Critical Realism as a means simply for accessing an object

of knowledge, in his case memory and tradition. But never the twain shall meet.

One brief last point concerning Dunn's historiography I wish to point out is his

layering of qualifications and certainty. In the materialistic guild of modern historiography, how

32Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 119.

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is Dunn's work to claim a stake in the discussion if he champions something as immaterial as an

oral tradition on top of concerns for probability? Put otherwise, probability would seem to be

diminishing the more we qualify the object of historical knowledge immaterially. Immaterial

objects in historical research do not lend themselves easily to a consensus view in a discipline

still largely scientific in its outlook. But this is not to deny the merits of memory discussed

previously and its success in answering many complex questions posed by gospel literary

dependence.

The Nature of the Tradition. Dunn's lack of clarity on the nature of tradition and how

it arises also causes the reader confusion. For example, how does, “There is in fact no gap to be

bridged between a Jesus historically conceived and the subsequent tradition which has effected

consciousness,” agree with (only three pages later), “at best what we have are the teachings of

Jesus as they impacted on the individuals who stored them in their memories and began the

process of oral transmission.”33 How is there being “no gap” compatible with a process of oral

transmission “which began with the initial impact of Jesus' word or deed and which continued to

influence intermediate retellers of the tradition until crystallized in Mark's or Matthew's or Luke's

account.”34 Is the tradition fixed with Christ so that there is no gap between his life and the

significance of him for his disciples? Or is there a gap involving a developing tradition? The

two are mutually exclusive; the historian cannot have it both ways.

33Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 128, 131.34Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 130.

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Applying Jesus Remembered

The best application of Dunn's work can truly be found in Dunn:

. . . dialogue with the heirs of Reimarus and Strauss is one of the activities which helps theology to maintain a place within the public forum of university-level search for knowledge and debate about truth. If theology wants to continue to make any kind of truth claims of relevance beyond the confines of the churches, then it has to make them within that public forum.35

35Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 34.