Can We Trust the New Testament? by J. A. T. Robinson

[John Reece]

Can We Trust the New Testament?

Chapter 7: WHAT CAME OF HIM?

THE RESURRECTION

If the resurrection story has a foot in public history (and to abandon that claim is to abandon something that has been central to the entire Christian tradition), then it must be open and vulnerable to the historian's scrutiny. Never let us suppose that we need not bother with his questions or that we are impervious to them. This is part of the risk of a religion of the Word made flesh―in Winston Churchill's phrase its 'soft under-belly'. And though the historian can neither give nor directly take away the faith, he can indirectly render the credibility-gap so wide that in fact men cease believing. My trust in the New Testament takes that risk. That is why as a New Testament scholar I am convinced that it is important to be a good historian as well as a man of faith―and not to confuse the two by giving answers of faith where historical evidence alone is relevant. For if Jesus could really be shown to be the sort of man who went into hiding rather than face death, or just another nationalist or freedom-fighter with a crime-sheet of violence, or the leader of a movement which rested in the last analysis on fraud, then I think of other candidates in reply to Peter's question, 'Lord, to whom else shall we go? (John 6.68). The answers that history can give will never take us all the way―and at best they can never be more than probable. Exactly what happened at the tomb, or anywhere else, we shall never know. All that we can ask―and must inquire―for faith, for the response of Thomas, 'My Lord and my God!', is that the credibility gap be not too wide. And that assurance I am persuaded―or I would not remain a Christian―is what the history, after all the sifting of the best and most rigorous scholarship can sustain.

[John Reece]

Can We Trust the New Testament?

Chapter 8: TRUSTFUL FAITH

Can we trust the New Testament? I firmly believe we can. But trust it for what? For a faith-ful record, in both senses of that phrase. And what, as I see it, that involves may be summarized again with the responses of the four attitudes from which we began..

[John Reece]

Can We Trust the New Testament?

Chapter 8: TRUSTFUL FAITH

'The cynicism of the foolish' believes that because the New Testament record is full of faith in one sense it cannot be faithful in the other. It is indeed full of faith, throbbing with the Church's conviction about Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God, Lord of the living and the dead. But an integral part of the Christ of faith is the Jesus of history. For it is faith in the Word made flesh. We have seen reason to believe that the first Christians had a reverence for the remembered words and deeds of Jesus which refused to allow them to make of him simply the mouthpiece of their own message. If they had been shown to have falsified, they would have been the first to admit with Paul that they were 'lying witnesses' or with St. John that 'the truth is not in us'. And where we are able to check them against non-Christian sources or the contemporary background of Roman or Jewish society there is good reason to conclude that the Gospels and Acts are not fictional records, far removed from fidelity to fact. To despair of knowing anything or of having any objective criteria is faithlessness to the very scientific and historical method to which such critics would trust every other field. I believe we must meet and challenge them on their own ground.

[John Reece]

Can We Trust the New Testament?

Chapter 8: TRUSTFUL FAITH

On the other hand, 'the fundamentalism of the fearful' will not admit the right of this method [see last paragraph] to the freedom in which alone it can function. It may 'use' it within a limited field for its own ends, and it does not hesitate to claim it 'results' when it suits them. But the ends are not open―and any results are thereby discredited. Its faith is not a trustful one. It is blinkered, and for this reason insecure. The revival of fundamentalism in our day, though psychologically understandable when all is shifting, is ultimately, I believe, a liability to the truth it claims to defend. The truth cannot be defended by such means. And the personal truth, above all, of which the gospel speaks is not to be comprehended or safeguarded by the infallibility of either a book or a pope. Yet the fear which feeds this attitude can only be cast out by love―and by the discovery that there is no need for it. This is happening―it has happened dramatically in the field of Roman Catholic scholarship―and in my experience the first step in the cure for such defensiveness is not to threaten it. But in the long run, as the many signs of first-class research coming from the camp are beginning to show, the only answer is better and more faithful scholarship. Then the laager of fear will be found unnecessary.

Next: the antepenultimate post...

[John Reece]

Can We Trust the New Testament?

Chapter 8: TRUSTFUL FAITH

With 'the scepticism of the wise' we come to the first of two attitudes with which I have considerable sympathy. It is open and it is often combined with real faithfulness and genuine devotion to Christ. My criticism would be that it is needlessly distrustful. In his New Testament Theology Jeremias formulates the following 'principle of method': 'In the synoptic tradition it is the inauthenticity and not the authenticity of the sayings of Jesus that must be demonstrated.' With every proper respect for the differences of aim, I would ask why this principle needs to be qualified with the words 'in the synoptic tradition'. As authenticity is understood in John (which is certainly not literalistically), I believe that it is just as applicable to his material. From a sustained study of the evidence I am not persuaded that one must assume that the early Church is not to be trusted on the sayings, or the deeds, of Jesus until proved otherwise. We have means of checking and discriminating and by those tests we can discern and discount the influences at work. To a good extent we can see where 'points' become 'stars', and why and how. Scepticism, or suspension of belief, has its place, and constant reminder that in the last analysis on any historical question one is dealing with degrees of probability is a healthy contribution. Yet the scepticism of the wise―I will not call it 'the treason of the clerks'―has had its part in creating the unhealthy gap between the professor and the parson, the study and the pew. More understanding―and more love―on both sides is needed. And that again is achieved by sympathetic and accepting openness―not by dismissive reviews and sniping articles.

Next: the penultimate paragraph...

[John Reece]

Can We Trust the New Testament?

Chapter 8: TRUSTFUL FAITH

Finally, 'the conservatism of the committed' is an attitude that I do not wish to knock. It exhibits that self-rectifying balance and solidarity which has enabled English scholarship, as well as English religion, to weather the extremes of Continental radicalism and Transatlantic fashion. I believe too that more often than not it has been proved right―even if for wrong or muddled reasons. Yet it is not on the whole a trustful faith. It is suspicious of the wise and heavily biased towards those who come up with 'reassuring' answers―such as mine on the early dating of the New Testament or the apostolic authorship of the Fourth Gospel! In Kierkegaard's analogy, the attitude of truth is like swimming with one foot on the bottom―rather than trusting yourself over 70,000 fathoms. For those who cannot swim it is certainly better than that of fundamentalism―which keeps both feet on the bottom. But a Church that cannot swim is in spiritual peril. For it is not free to obey its Lord's command to launch out into the deep. And if too many of its members, let alone of its instructors, are in that condition, it will not be able to survive, let alone give a lead, in the modern world. This applies of course to much more than the New Testament. But if it cannot exhibit a trustful and critical faith in relation to that―the character of its salvation―it will be fatally weakened at source.

Next: the ultimate paragraph...

[John Reece]

Can We Trust the New Testament?

Chapter 8: TRUSTFUL FAITH

The conclusion of the matter may be put quite simply. A Christian has nothing to fear but the truth. For it alone could show that this movement is not of God (Acts 5.38ff.). But he also has nothing to fear in the truth. For to him the truth is Christ (John 14.6). It is large―larger than the world―and shall prevail. It is also a living, and a growing, reality. And therefore he is free, or should be free, to follow the truth wherever it leads. He has no advance information or inbuilt assurance precisely where it will lead. I know that I have been led through the study of the New Testament to conclusions, both negative and positive, that I did not expect. For instance, just what underlies the birth narratives, what were the relations between the movements of John the Baptist and Jesus, how and in what way did Jesus' own understanding of his role become modified by events, how did he think of the future, did he expect to return, what is most likely to have happened at his trial and resurrection, what is the relative priority for the portrait of Jesus of our different sources, especially of the Fourth Gospel, what pattern and time-scale of early church development emerges from the dating of our documents?―on these and many other things my own mind has changed and will doubtless continue to change. And my picture will not be quite the same as anyone else's―more radical at some points and more conservative at others. There is nothing fixed or final: our knowledge and our questions are constantly expanding and shifting. And who knows what new evidence may not suddenly be dug up? Yet out of all this my trust in the primary documents of the Christian faith has been strengthened rather than shaken. The scholarship does not give me the faith; but it increases my confidence that my faith is not misplaced. Yet it provides no copper-bottomed guarantee. For the Christian walks always in this life by trust, and not by sight. And he is content to close his Te Deum, his most confident affirmation of faith, with the prayer of vulnerability: 'O Lord, in thee have I trusted: let me never be confounded.'

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