The New Testament Witness to Christ and His Kingdom, Student Workbook, SW13

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T H E N E W T E S T A M E N T W I T N E S S T O C H R I S T A N D H I S K I N G D O M

Readings on the Historical Credibility of the New Testament (continued)

The Modern Critical View II: Are the Accounts of Jesus’ Passion Propaganda?

We must also call into question whether it is appropriate for us to impose our supposed standards of historical objectivity on documents like the NT. As John 20.31 puts it, he has reported the story of Jesus’ spectacular acts (“signs”) in order “that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” Clearly not all his readers are going to share his conclusions, but he is forthright in telling his readers his aims. And those aims are not objective reporting. Using the term in its root sense, of a means of propagating a point of view or belief, the New Testament is not objective history, but propaganda. But then history in any time and culture is always event plus interpretation; it is never merely objective, in the sense of lacking a framework of interpretation or point of view. What is required is to be aware of the writer’s assumptions, the aims of the writings, what its vocabulary, style, and conceptual language presuppose. Jesus of Nazareth is the historical base for the Christian claim to be the community of the new covenant. Yet, as we have observed, our documentary evidence about him was written long after his death, probably in the last half of the first century. Our records are a series of responses to Jesus by those who saw in him the agent of God, not the reports of detached observers. In the process of analyzing these documents of faith we learn about Jesus, but we also learn about the communities in which the tradition about him was treasured and transmitted . The death of Christ was itself identified with the Passover in the Pauline churches (1 Cor. 5.7); and in Johannine circles [that is, in the churches of John], Jesus was regarded as the Lamb of God (John 1.29; Rev. 5). . . . But just Mark was content to affirm only that the death of Jesus was necessary, without explaining why or how, so he simply states that Jesus’ death is in behalf of others. This is what the community of Mark celebrates in the communion, while looking forward to the completion of the number of the elect in the new age. The Modern Critical View III: Did Community Needs Dictate the Message?

Howard Clark Kee. Understanding the New Testament . Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1983. p. 9.

Howard Clark Kee. Understanding the New Testament . Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1983. p. 78, 121.