A careful study of the debates about the historical Jesus as contained in the literature of biblical criticism, reveals some interesting things, that I hope to discuss in the future. A certain pattern between liberal and non-liberal scholars can be discerned, and I think each group of scholars deserve an analysis.
In this moment, I'd like to share some of my current conclusions about liberal scholarship in biblical criticism. I choose this group of scholars (instead of jewish, evangelical, etc.) because such liberal scholarship is very, very influential and a proper discussion of it is deserved.
This post doesn't pretend to be an exhaustive assesment of liberal scholarship, nor to be valid for "all" liberal scholars. You should understand this post as an introductory (if long) commentary only.
I've found that, as a rule, one can find some questionable (and even argueably false) pressupositions in liberal scholarship, which largely determines its conclusions (some of them, pluralistic) regarding the historical Jesus.
These pressupositions are:
1-Metaphysical naturalism and atheism
2-Strong anti-Christian prejudices, specially the assumption that early Church's view of Jesus is guilty until proven innocent, i.e. assumed to be false (or fabricated) until proved to be true or historical.
3-Religious pluralism (the view that God has revealed himself in several religions, or that all or several religious traditions are true. Also, the view that no particular religion is divinely privileged).
Currently, I'm trying to systematize (with precise references) all the pressupositions that I've found in these scholars, but I'll focus only in the above three in this post.
Metaphysical naturalism and atheism
The more obvious and influential underlying belief of most liberal scholars is metaphysical naturalism and atheism. This belief implies the non-existence of God and, as consequence, the impossibility of miracles (i.e. divine actions on nature beyond nature's purely physical laws).
Regarding the historical Jesus, this pressuposition implies:
-Denial of the possibility of Jesus' bodily resurrection. Since Jesus' resurrection is by all parties considered the best example of what a miracle would be, the denial of this event implies the falsehood of all of the New Testament claims of it. This implies that Christianity is false. (But note that this conclusion is not based on the historical evidence, but in a priori metaphysical considerations about the existence of God).
John Dominic Crossan's position is telling of this view: "I do not think that anyone, anywhere, at any time brings dead people back to life" (Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, p. 35). If it is supposed to be a philosophical position (not merely a personal subjective belief), then Crossan's position is acceptable only if an omnipotent God doesn't exist.
After all, if God exists, then certainly it is at least possible that, given his omnipotence, he could rise Jesus (or any other person) from the death. Since God's existence guarantees this metaphysical possibility, the whole discussion would be (in this case) if the historical evidence supports (or not) the case for Jesus' actual resurrection. If God exists, the historicity of Jesus' resurrection becomes a matter of evidence.
But an atheistic-naturalistic position like Crossan's settle the matter even before we sit down on the table to look at the evidence. The evidence is irrelevant because God's non-existence implies the non-factuality of the resurrection. The whole discussion is settled by a philosophical assumption.
This is clearly a close-minded position, similar to studying precognition assuming that "I do not think that anyone, anywhere, at any time can know the future through paranormal means". Would you rely in any parapsychologist or psychic researcher who study the evidence for precognition with such assumption in mind?
Likewise, would you rely in any historical Jesus scholar who studies the putative resurrection of Jesus with such view on mind?
Obviously not (unless that you strongly agree with such pressupositions). Materialists would agree with the anti-precognition assumption and most anti-Christians would agree with the anti-resurrection assumption. But open-minded researchers and truth-seekers won't: They will ask for specific EVIDENCE (scientific, philosophical and historical) for such pressupositions and wouldn't take them for granted. They won't take for granted any assumption which begs the question for the event under investigation.
Strong anti-Christian prejudices, specially the assumption that early Church's view of Jesus is guilty until proven innocent, i.e. assumed to be false (or fabricated) until proved to be true or historical
Again and again, you will find (either explicitly or implicitly) among liberal scholars the assumption that the early Church fabricated a theologically coloured view of Jesus, and that such fabrication is contrary to the facts of Jesus' teachings, sayings and deeds.
I've found that this assumption is extremely appealing for anti-Christian readers (in the same way that the skeptical assumption that putative paranormal phenomena are product of wishful thinking, ignorance of science and superstition are very appealing for materialistic readers), but truth-seekers and objective researchers will demand sufficient evidence for this assumption.
In parapsychology, there is a long tradition of fraud, incompetence and deception, but it is not reason to think that all the cases are product of fraud, incompetence and delusion. Likewise, many parapsychologists and people who have had psychic experiences are believers in psi, the afterlife and God, but it is not reason to think their paranormal bias invalidates their experiences or conclusions. They could be right even if they were biased in favour of the paranormal or spiritual world.
Like in case of parapsychology, simply arguing that the early Church's members were strong believers in Jesus and hence biased towards him is not a compelling reason to think they fabricated the traditional view of Jesus, because precisely what we have to explain is WHY (contrary to their religious beliefs) they become strong believers in him (in particular, why strong monotheistic jews would become convinced that Jesus was divine. They were biased against the view that any man could be God; therefore, it is reasonable to think that some important event or events in Jesus' life convinced them, beyond any doubt, that Jesus was divine... if their conclusion is right or wrong is precisely what we have to research and we cannot simply "assume" that they were wrong in his view of Jesus. Such assumption reveals strong prejudice).
In a grotesque way, some liberal scholars write as whether their readers all share their anti-Christian assumptions. They seem to think anti-Christianity is being taken for granted. But any truth seeker won't take for granted any position which begs the question about the matter under scrutiny. You have to be open to all the relevant possibilities, including the possibility that the traditional portrait of Jesus be true.
I consider that this implicit assumption by liberal scholars is the most dangerous, misleading and insidious one. For anti-Christian readers, it is "so natural", "so obvious" that the supernaturalistic view of Jesus was an invention of the Church, that no much discussion about it is necessary. Only "Christian fundametalists" would believe in such Jesus.
The most dangerous consequence of this assumption is that it subtly mislead the readers into creating a double standard in evaluating the sources: Christian scholarly sources are considered biased and unreliable, but liberal scholarly sources (even if admitted to be a little bit biased too) will be considered most reliable. Hence, they will tend to believe the latter over the former (without realizing that the whole conclusions are, largely, based on question begging philosophical and theological assumptions and pressupositions against Christianity). This blindness become extreme and unchangeable, when the reader in question SHARE the same philosophical and theological assumptions.
An analogy do exists in the pseudoskeptical literature: When you read the works of James Randi or (specially) Martin Gardner, you get the impression that patapsychologists are a bunch of incompetent and credulous pseudoscientific researchers, eager to "prove" that the "paranormal" exists, not smart enough to realize that they're being fooled by magicians masked as "psychics" or "mediums". This is the actual view that you get reading these books and people familiar with the pseudoskeptical literature (specially of Martin and Randi) will know that I'm being accurate.
Materialistic readers will, as a rule, agree symmpathetically with Randi or Gardner's portrait of parapsychology. They won't "see" that they are being misled by their own anti-paranormal prejudices. they will believe that their anti-psi position is implied by the best results of science. Exactly the same applies to historical Jesus research: Liberal scholars, and readers sympathetic to them, take for granted a bunch of anti-Christian assumptions (specially about the extraordinary powers of fabrication and invention of the early Church, who apparently and inexplicably weren't interested in the truth), and sincerely believe that their view is based on the best results of current biblical criticism research. Pure self-delusion.
Truth-seekers won't set up a such apriostic double standard: They will subject each scholar with the same critical rigour, weighting the scholars' arguments and evidence in their own merits. They will ask if the scholar's presuppositions (like Crossan's) promotes an open-minded minset about the evidence (and how such pressupositions affects the reading of the data), or if they close the doors, a priori, to certain possibilities. They will be open minded (but critical) of the philosophical and theological assumptions behind the scholar's position and will subject such philosophical views to rigurous critical examination on the light of contemporary philosophy.
Religious pluralism
Besides to atheism, another important motivation of some liberal scholars is religious pluralism. There are at least two kinds of religious pluralism:
1-The view that God has revealed himself is several religions, hence making several of them "true". This view doesn't necessarily excludes an event like Jesus' resurrection, but undermines its exclusivity and importance for understading Jesus' nature. For example, it will be claimed that Jesus' resurrection is product of Buddhist practiques, Yoga, Chi Kung or any other known or unknown practique, religious or mystical exercise (subtly implying that whoever perfects such technique or exercise can be raised like Jesus. The implication is that Jesus' resurrection is not unique nor implies anything divinely special about him).
This view seem to be popular among paranormal believers and fans of parapsychology or spiritualism (judging from the e-mails that I received in my "experiment" to test the readers' prejudices) who, in general, have not idea of the literature about biblical criticism and scholarly discussions about Jesus.
However, as far I know, no prominent historical Jesus scholar or professional historian defends this kind of pluralism about Jesus, and this for several obvious reasons:
a-No credible historical or serious scholarly evidence exists for Jesus knowing (let alone, mastering) any of the putative "resurrecting" practiques or exercises mentioned by the pluralist. It only exists in the pluralist's speculative imagination, without any evidence supporting it, and which is motivated exclusively by the (perhaps unconcious) desire to undermine the traditional view of Jesus.
b-No credible evidence exists that such "resurrecting" practiques do exist and are effective to produce resurrections in the same sense as applied to Jesus (i.e. that when they're mastered, they can actually cause a person to be raised from to dead into a immortal physical body). Again, this is pure speculation, not supported by any empirical or historical evidence (compare the skeptic of parapsychology speculating about alternative, purely speculative and non-evidenced based fradulent scenarios to explain the psi evidence away).
Again, this position is too telling of having strong prejudices against the traditional view of Jesus and no scholar will attempt to defend this position. No evidence will help him against informed scholarly criticisms.
Note: Such wild speculations wouldn't be accepted by the pluralist if posed by a skeptic against psi or afterlife phenomena. The pluralist won't accept as reasonable or plausible alternatives that "perhaps" all the evidence for reincarnation, mediumship and psi experiences "could" be caused by a bunch of alien beings manipulating us from their spaceshifts, or by scientists from the future who are testing mind control experiments with us (or by a Cartesian demon playing with us).
Such speculations won't be accepted as plausible alternatives by the same pluralist who speculates about Jesus' resurrection being a consequence of Jesus' mastering of Yoga.
2-The view that God has NOT revealed himself in any religion, which implies that no religion is privileged.
This is the view adopted by many liberal scholars. The adventage of this position is that it is compatible not only with several religions (hence, making a politically correct view of Jesus palatable to everyone) but even with atheism. If no religion has been privileged, then the atheist and secularist reader will have no objection to a portrait of Jesus based on that assumption.
Prominent New Testament scholar Marcus Borg is a telling example of this kind of religious pluralism: "A second problem is that the notion of supernatural intervention tends to privilege Christianity (Will the real Jesus please stand up? pp. 127)
As consequence, the view of Jesus that Borg accepts is a view which "undermines a widespread Christian belief that Jesus is unique, which is commonly linked to the notion that Christianity is exclusively true and that ‘Jesus is the only way." ( Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, p. 37. Emphasis in blue added)".
In other words, no supernatural intervention (e.g. Jesus being raised from the dead by God) assures that Jesus is not unique. Hence, religious pluralism about Jesus is acceptable. (Note that it implies that if Jesus' resurrection happened, then it is reasonable to posit God as the plausible cause of this event and hence to accept that exclusivism is plausible too because Jesus would be "privileged" among other spiritual teachers. Christians couldn't be accused of being unreasonable to hold such belief, provided the case for the resurrection is a good one).
Pushed by this purely theological prejudice, Borg is forced to re-define the meaning of "resurrection" in purely subjective terms: "For me, the truth of Easter is very simple: the followers of Jesus, both then and now, continue to experience Jesus as a living reality after his death. The post-Easter Jesus is a experiential reality"(ibid. p. 124)
Such "simple" conclusion is warranted only if Borg's theological prejudices (against supernatural interventions, religious exclusivism, Jesus' bodily resurrection, God as a personal and transcendent being, etc.) were true. But there is not reason at all to accept them, in fact there are good historical and philosophical reasons to reject them.
Such prejudices and assumptions are massively question begging (against the traditional view of Jesus) and threat to create a largely fictional and artificial (but culturally very palatable) portrait of Jesus, which satisfies the desires of spiritually-oriented people who are sympathetic of religious pluralism.
All the above prejudices become painfully obvious in specific instances or pieces of evidence supporting exclusivism and the traditional view of Jesus (for example, when discussing the evidence for Jesus' exclusivistic self-perception, or the evidence for a physical resurrection body interpretation in the New Testament, for example in the case of Borg's egregious, purely subjective and contrary to evidence opinion about it).
I'm fortunated to having been familiar with the pseudoskeptical literature before I began to study the historical Jesus. The pattern of misdirection learned from pseudoskeptics to explain the evidence away is very similar to the pattern used by some liberal scholars to explain the evidence for Jesus's teachings, identity and (putative) resurrection.
The study of pseudoskepticism opened the way to this journey...
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