A LAYMAN SPEAKS,
SOME VIEWS FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF THE PULPIT
J. Philip Landis, BSEE MIT 1948
Prepared for WCTS Meeting November 14, 2001
Millar Burrows put the matter very well in his book MORE LIGHT ON THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS:
What is essential, of course, ... Is not that Jesus' words should be new but that they should be true. At the same time. If he was the incarnate Word of God, we can hardly believe that he would have nothing to say except what other religious teachers of his time were saying.
The context of Burrows' writing was a comparison of Jesus to the Teacher of Righteousness of the Qumran Community, however the statement seems valid in any context.
What we know of the words of Jesus is to be learned mainly from the letters of Paul and the Gospels. Our concern here is the usefulness of these sources.
The letters of Paul are singularly devoid of the words of Jesus. In addition, Paul almost never cites Jesus as the source of Paul's ideas or teachings. He cites Jesus in only two places that the writer has found:
1. I Cor 7:10 In denouncing divorce (as in Matt 5:32).
2. I Thess 4:15-17 on events of the last days (not otherwise attested in Gospels).
Paul has much to say about Christology but substantially nothing about what Jesus himself had to Say. His writings almost totally ignore the earthly Jesus. (Did he not wish to deal with events to which he has not witness?) Hence we cannot answer Burrows' question based on Paul's writings.
John's gospel purports to tell us at great length what Jesus had to say. There seem to be two possible reactions to John's gospel:
1. As numerous commentators conclude, the words in the gospel are those of the Johannine community rather than the words of Jesus himself.
2. The words are Jesus' own.
The first seems by far the most likely. In either case, the comment of Rudolph Bultmann seems most appropriate. "The Johannine Jesus reveals nothing but that he is the Revealer...", "..a Revealer without a revelation.." [quoted by RAYMOND BROWN in AN INTRODUCTION TO NEW TESTAMENT CHRISTOLOGY, page 197]. It would seem that after hearing all that Jesus says about his past and future with the Father, about all the things he says "I AM", about how he is to be glorified, a few words about love and service (within the brotherhood), and so forth, all that the hearer is left to act upon is "belief". The entire object of all living apparently is the attainment of eternal life and that is to be had only through believing that Jesus Is who and what he claims to be. There is no enlightenment regarding the benevolence or will of God (aside from what is "seen" in Jesus), no unconditional love and forgiveness on the part of God, no moral or ethical teachings. One must think that the only thing necessary to make the lives of followers complete was belief. Perhaps John's Jesus brings the "Word" on how salvation is to be attained, but he brings almost nothing to improve the state of the world.
The Synoptics
Here one can Indeed find "words" that clarify and add to then current thought about God, love, forgiveness, man's obligation to man, right conduct, etc. While all these gospels are thought to have been written after Paul's letters, they seem to be based on older traditions and to portray a Jesus more likely to correspond to reality and less encumbered by christological speculation than Paul (or John). The writer Is very comfortable with the salvation message proclaimed by Jesus In the Synoptics (see JESUS SAVES), words far more comprehensible as reflecting God's love than John or Paul.
With regard to the question above by Burrows concerning "truth", much study in recent years has gone into the determination of the "historical accuracy" of the biblical account of Jesus' actions and words. While opinions vary greatly, all competent scholars attribute at least some material to sources other than Jesus. The consensus does appear to favor the Synoptics as preserving the most "historical" material. Whether this implies that they are more "true" is perhaps a matter of individual judgment and how one would answer Pilate's question "What is truth?"