By Harry T. Cook
7/5/13
Among my life aspirations was to become a scholar, that is, one who could claim to have studied a certain body of knowledge to the extent that he could go on to conduct acceptable research in his area of concentration and, from time to time, enter its findings into the greater discussion going on among his betters in the same field.
To that end, I used my facility with languages already learned (Latin and German) to learn Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek sufficiently to be able to research ancient scriptural texts in their original languages. I wanted to know as much as I could about the origins of those texts, the history and cultures that produced them and to what end.
The idea was to be able to exercise a sound teaching ministry in the lives of congregations I would go on to serve pastorally and, as well, to publish some of my work.
One of my mentors, the late George A. Buttrick, had perfected such a ministry in his weekly sermons and the books that flowed from his research. His work got him, toward the end of his career, a professorship at Harvard and the pulpit of the university church. While I knew I would never get to Harvard even via deus ex machina, much less into the pulpit of its venerable chapel, I modeled my own discipline on his.
The difference between Dr. Buttrick and me is that his research was done almost solely to make the case for an evangelical interpretation of biblical texts. For him, virtually everything in the Bible pointed to what he considered to be the foundational truth of the world, viz. that Jesus Christ was quite literally the only son of the only God, that Christ had been crucified, resurrected, and would surely come again.
I deeply admired and was schooled in Dr. Buttrick's system of scholarship, but I came to see that research needed to be done not on the basis of trying to prove the truth or validity of a doctrine, but, rather, on the proposition of going where the data leads.
Having conducted my research on that basis, I found what I had never thought to find. I came to see that what I'd been taught in Sunday school and heard in church -- like Gershwin's "stories you're liable to read in the Bible" -- was not necessarily so, and often far from it. That was a jolt, I can tell you.
But I can tell you also that no amount of data carefully and objectively parsed will lead a dispassionate scholar to proclaim that Jesus Christ was in any literal way the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, True God from true God, begotten, not made, of one substance with the Father. Through him all things were made. (Partial text of the Nicene Creed, ca. 325 CE.)
It is in dealing with such flat-out doctrinal statements that I have encountered pushback over the years -- from sworn enemies and good friends alike. In a recent essay based on my research and that of others -- many more advanced than I -- I wrote of the possibility -- the possibility, understand -- that the Jesuses encountered in the 20 documents called "gospels" (that includes the ones best known: Mark, Matthew, Luke and John) may not necessarily have been the same person.*
That "possibility" is, at best, an hypothesis that needs a great deal of testing against the textual, cultural and historical records. But it is an hypothesis, and an honestly arrived at one. It is also heresy. A "heretic" (from the Greek word is αιρεσις, meaning "that which is chosen") is one who chooses on whatever basis to think or believe in ways other than a ruling majority expects or demands.
If one has done the research and is more or less compelled under the rubric of intellectual honesty to deposit its fruits in the basket for discussion, and on that basis alone is denounced, defrocked, decertified or otherwise marginalized, what hope is there for the advancement of knowledge? Keep the labors of such pioneers as Galileo, Darwin and Hans K�ng in mind as you attempt to answer that question.
My research and analysis over half a century have led me to a different place than most church authorities would have me led, to a place, that is, which does not allow me with integrity intact to affirm what I realize is based on a priori assumptions not submitted to vigorous examination and analysis.
Why does the church continue to insist upon operating on an a priori basis since reason and experience have been shown in virtually every discipline to be the superior means of determining what is real?
Enough is known of Jesus (or the Jesuses) of the early decades of the first century CE to say that he -- or they -- advocated egalitarianism, passive resistance and peace in the tradition of several of the Hebrew prophets of earlier centuries. Why is that knowledge considered inadequate to serve as the foundation of a Christian religious persuasion -- or a Jewish one, for that matter?
Why, further, is it unacceptable to consider that certain biblical texts and ancient creedal statements may be metaphorical, many Bible stories mythological, and baseless pronouncements of church authorities presumptuous at best?
Should one be effectively excommunicated if he or she cannot affirm that which is clearly presumptive in nature over what is far more evident as history and fact?
What's the matter with the continuation of research, analysis and discussion -- with the framing and testing of new hypotheses when the data suggest it, even beg for it? If all that amounts to heresy or at the very least heterodoxy, then I plead guilty as charged.
*See also: Cook, Harry T. What a Friend They Had in Jesus: The Theological Visions of Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Hymns Writers, p. 27. Salem, OR: Polebridge Press.
