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.
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.
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