Reflections on "Lost", Romans 9, and Purpose

I have been working on getting my second video review done so I don't have a new post available this week so I'm going to post something I wrote in my journal several years ago about the TV show "Lost" and Romans chapter 9. Note, it was written when "Lost" was still in its first season and fresh (I was ultimately let down by the conclusion of that otherwise entertaining show) and during a time of personal anguish which accounts for some of the emotional under current of the journal entry.

One of the few television shows that I keep up with is "Lost". So far this show has many of the elements that I enjoy in a TV series. The thrust of the show is this: Oceanic Flight 815 has crashed on an unknown and mysterious island. The survivors of the crash are ultimately trying to find a way off the island but at the same time are trying to uncover some of its mysteries. Now this premise is in no way unique but the creators of the show, J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof, added one interesting feature to this often used plot device which, in my opinion, gives it a fresh spin. In short, they gave the island a personality. And it's this "personality" that in some manner, I suspect, is the source for many of the oddities of the island such as polar bears, an invisible monster that devours people, the miraculous healing of a former paraplegic, just to name a few.

Now this former paraplegic is one of the central characters of the show. He is John Locke, named after the famous philosopher who developed a theory of epistemology which argued that humans were not born with innate ideas. Instead they come into the world with a tabula resa or blank slate in which knowledge and, ultimately, experiences are "chiseled" into over time. In other words, Locke squarely came down on the side of nurture in the seemingly interminable "nature vs nuture" debate. Incidentally, one of the episodes in season 1 is named "Tabula Resa".

Obviously, because of his seemingly supernatural healing, Locke is the most driven of the survivors to unlocking the secrets of the island. It is Locke who constantly refers to the island as an entity. Furthermore, it is Locke who sees purpose in everything that has been happening on the island summed up when he tells one of the other characters that "it is the Island that brought us here." Ultimately, Locke is the man of faith who sees purpose and destiny in everything that has happened to the survivors. And if Locke is the man of faith on the island then without a doubt Jack Shepherd, the surgeon, is the man of doubt. In fact, in a heated argument between the two concerning the island Jack explicitly tells Locke that he doesn't believe in purpose or fate and vehemently argues that everything that has happened can be ascribed to a series of coincidences.

Maybe it is too much of a generalization but it seems to me that these two types of characters represent the divide that most people fall into when it comes to questions of fate and randomness. Some are inclined to see purpose in everything while others are satisfied to relegate everything to the workings of chance. I guess I have grown up being one of the former. Some of which surely stems from my love of certain movies like Star Wars that heavily involve a motif of destiny in their plots. But mostly this comes from my Christian heritage. You see when you grow up in a Christian atmosphere you are constantly told that God has a purpose for your life. Indeed, the preferred text cited in support of this notion is almost always Jeremiah 29:11 which states, "For I know the plans I have for you, declares YHWH, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future."

But the older I get the less sense this viewpoint of "God having a purpose for everyone" makes. To be honest, I'm inclined towards the negative of that statement which, incidentally, seems to be supported by the texts deemed in some sense sacred and divine by Christians. One need look no further than Romans chapter 9. Now I've stated before that I don't think the Calvinist interpretation of this chapter, i.e., that it is concerned with God's right to predestine some to eternal salvation and, at least passively, the rest to eternal damnation. But one thing is clear to me now: this passage is definitely about God's sovereignty in election to promise (purpose).

The problem that Paul is exploring in this chapter is the seemingly apparent rejection of the Jews in favor of the Gentiles displayed in the fact that so few Jews are accepting the gospel message. If this is the case then it would seem, Paul implies, that God's promises have failed. But Paul of course immediately rejects this implication with a hefty, "God forbid!".

Yet through all of Rom 9-11 Paul fails to give us a clear solution to this problem. But what he does say is nevertheless important, namely, that God's choice of receives promise (purpose) has always began with his election and mercy, and therefore not based on anything in man or of man. To support this Paul cites the example of God's choice of Jacob over Esau: "Before they had been born and before they had done anything evil or good, so that God's purpose in election might stand not on man who wills but on he who shows mercy, it was told to Sarah that the 'elder shall serve the younger'". Then Paul quotes from Malachi to further strengthen his argument: "For it is written, 'Jacob I have loved, Esau I have hated.'" Though most scholars understand this harsh saying to be a Hebrew idiom meaning simply "Jacob I have chosen, Esau I have rejected" we should not let this detract from the harshness of the saying. The impact is the same: God's purpose for people begins solely from His own purposes. For no reason but his own, God chose Jacob over Esau to be the child of promise, through whom would emerge Israel, his chosen people. This is reinforced by the fact that by birthright Esau should have been the chosen because he was the first born but God upended this traditional mode of election by choosing the second born. In short, God gives purpose to some and not to others.

Now though I've rejected the traditional Calvinist interpretation of this chapter which Calvin himself called "The Terrible Decree" that sees this as about predestination, I wonder if my interpretation is not at least as terrible? Indeed, God choosing only some for purpose seems a hair's breadth from the Calvinist doctrine of predestination.

But some might try to reply to my argument by quoting Romans 8:28 which states that "God works all things for good." But in reality, that passage has some restrictions that many miss. You have to love God and more importantly you have to be called according to His purpose. For this is what the passage actually says: "For God works all things for good to those who love him and who are called according to his purpose."

What can be inferred except that not all are called according to purpose? And again, if this is the case, is this not just as terrible an implication as Calvin's "terrible decree"? I guess then it is God who decides who will be the John Lockes and Jack Shepherds.

RIP Grandma

Typically, I try not to write about personal events on this blog but I want to make an exception for this post. Today, I lost my last grandparent, Grandma Elder, my maternal grandmother. It wasn't a huge surprise since she had been in the hospital for about a month fighting an infection. Still, I think we are all experiencing grief...especially those who were holding out hope that she might recover. I will miss her greatly....and not just because of the excellent home cooked meals that I would receive when visiting her or staying the night. She was a very generous person who lived a very difficult life. Nevertheless, she was always willing to help out her kids and grandkids. This included me. Before I deployed to Afghanistan I was in a bad financial position because I had left my job in Chattanooga at the time to come home to get ready for mobilization. But, as is the Army way, they kept delaying my mobilization which squeezed my finances. It was my grandmother who loaned me some money that enabled me to get through until I did finally leave the country. I will never forget that.

Another thing I will always remember about Grandma Elder is her sharp mind. Everyday that I was there she would be working on crossword puzzles and usually finished them completely. And though her memory often failed her towards the end of her life she still knew if the slightest thing in her kitchen was out of place! I have no doubt that had she been born in a later time period where women had more opportunities to advance that she would have gone on to great things. Wait...that's not fair. Raising six kids and many, many grandkids is a testament to the fact that she did do great things in her life.

Over the last several years my religious worldview has gone through some drastic changes...."refinement" is the way I like to phrase it, though that's probably a bit disingenuous. But I'm still a theist who believes in a just universe and therefore a just creator. And if I believe such then it seems to follow (though not necessarily) that there will be an "afterlife" of some kind...though I intensely dislike that word. I care not really to fruitlessly speculate on what it might be like but I do hope that it would be something akin to the classic Judeo-Christian (and Islamic) belief in the resurrection of the dead (Yes, I know those choice of words conjure images of zombies stumbling out of their graves to walk the earth. Still...) and redemption of the created order....much more appealing than the now popular (among modern day evangelical Christians at least) conception of an eternity floating about "heaven" as disembodied souls.

Nonetheless, if my vestigial Christian belief turns out to be well founded then I truly look forward to the day when I see my grandmother again at the Day of the Resurrection. I will severely miss you, Grandma. Rest in peace...for now.

"In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall all be changed." (I Cor 15:52 KJV)

Jesus of History, Christ of Faith

(I've been away for an Army thing so I haven't had time to compose anything this week so I'm going to post something I wrote a few years ago.)

Who do men say that I am?

There are two images of the figure of Jesus which I have chosen that exhibit the distinction between traditional conceptions of Jesus as the Christ of faith and the more modern notions concerning the historical Jesus or Jesus of history.

The first is a painting done by Coppo di Marcavaldo around 1261 titled simply “Crucifix” which presents Jesus in the more traditional vein. His body is contorted in a slightly unrealistic manner in that his arms are too long and his torso is stretched too far. The face lacks any kind of definite emotion and behind his head appears the typical halo-like piece that can be seen in many of the representations of Jesus during this time period. Moreover, the crucifix is surrounded by well known images from the narratives of the four Gospels and the cross itself is “topped off” with a picture representing the resurrection and ascension of Jesus. In short this is a portrayal of Jesus that bears many of the hallmarks of traditional Christian thinking about Jesus at this time in history.

The second image is radically different and is the work of forensic scientist Richard Nieve. In 2001 the BBC ran a documentary on the historical Jesus and asked Nieve, via the appropriation of forensic tools, to form a hypothetical reconstruction of what the historical Jesus might have looked like. The result is strikingly non-fantastic. Nieve’s Jesus appears as a rather common looking Middle Eastern. His face is bearded, round-shaped, dark eyed, and olive-skinned. Also, Nieve’s reconstruction has none of the accompanying traditional material of the Maravaldo piece such as the Gospel narratives. Indeed, Nieve’s Jesus is amazingly plain. But this is precisely the point for Nieve was asked to reconstruct a portrait of the historical Jesus and not a traditional conception of the Christ of faith the assumption being that the two are in some manner distinct.

And it is precisely this (perceived) dichotomy between the Jesus of history and the Christ of Faith and its assumption that the two are not completely one and the same that is the point at issue with which we have been dealing with in this class. As we have learned, prior to the Enlightenment no distinction within the Church between a Jesus of history and a Christ of faith existed since the two were believed (and assumed) to be one and the same, i.e., the Jesus of history was/is the Christ of faith. But the Enlightenment and its emphasis on empirical rationalism caused a shift in thinking which emphasized to various levels of degree that the two could, indeed should, be separated. And the task that has essentially been assigned to us is to ask whether or not the separation is truly possible or, for that matter, even desirable.

Now there can be no doubt that the figure of Jesus has exerted a powerful influence in the world since Late Antiquity. And regardless of whether one is a believer or not our culture (i.e., Western culture) is permeated with this figure and the culture that was established in his name, namely, Christendom. Thus, I am appreciative of Dr. Pacini’s point that even our discourse about Jesus has become grammatically saturated by notions of the Christ of faith such that a separation of the two might not be possible.

My concern, though, is that this notion might be used as means of declaring the entire scholarly pursuit of the historical Jesus as a non-legitimate task precisely because the Christ of faith cannot be separated from the Jesus of history. My reflex as a historian and as someone who has spent the last several years engaged in such a task is to shout from the top of my lungs that the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith can be separated and that it is incumbent upon the historian and scholar to force that separation. Thus, my own bias in favor of historical research may be preventing me from seeing the impossibility of separating the Jesus of history from the Christ of faith.

Nevertheless, I believe that there are a few “reasoned” observations that can be made in favor of separating these two conceptions of the figure of Jesus. First, it appears that this unique problem only has the force it potentially has in that it serves more of a difficulty for those who are committed to some sort of “confessional” stance vis a vis the figure of Jesus. Now by confessional I do not necessarily mean “denominational”, rather, my usage of “confessional” here denotes anyone who believes that the figure of Jesus is somehow determinatively significant or important for their lives. In other words, those who have some sort of investment in a particular construction of the identity of Jesus as they believe it bears on their spiritual lives will inevitably reconstruct an historical Jesus which conforms to their conception of the Christ of faith. Therefore, the “confessional” individual will find it immensely difficult, and, in agreement with Dr. Pacini, probably impossible to separate the two conceptions of Jesus.[1]

It is then the individual who does not believe that Jesus has any significance for them in a “confessional” sense as defined above that I believe stands in a better position to separate the two. However, one could riposte with the assertion that anyone who deals with the figure of Jesus, whether a believer or not, does so with some sort of self-interest or stake in their particular conception or reconstruction of Jesus so that the non-confessional pursuer of a historical Jesus stands in no better relation in regards to the problem of separating the Jesus of history from the Christ of faith.[2] Furthermore, one could also retort that no individual who engages in attempting to reconstruct the Jesus of history does so from a dispassionate or disinterested perspective (otherwise why would they be attempting the task in the first place?) and thus can never achieve true objectivity with their subject matter.

I admit that these arguments have a certain powerful force to them. But they are problems that occur not just in regards to the question of the historical Jesus and the Christ of faith but are problems that take place within the larger philosophical discourse/debate concerning epistemology and its relation to history. It has become fashionable these days to take up the mantle of post-modernism with its emphasis on relativism, deconstructionism, structuralism, “new historicism”, and all the other “isms”, to conclude that there really is no “truth” out there or if there is it cannot be known in and of itself and that when one engages in an attempt to write history all they truly are doing is writing “fiction”. For my own part I am a bit old-fashioned in that I still adhere to a form of 18^th century positive historicism which believes there is a “truth” out there and that even though one can never completely ascertain it the historian can at the least come damn close. Therefore, granting that the believer and the non-believer both have problems when it comes to objectively studying the Jesus of history it is still my judgment that the latter has a better shot at separating the historical Jesus from the Christ of faith.

Secondly, even granting that separating the Christ of faith from the Jesus of history is an impossible task or at least extremely difficult I would still argue that attempting to do so is not only viable but a noble goal as well. In fact, the spirit of scholarship, which is ultimately concerned with the advancement of knowledge, demands it. To engage in history is to level the playing field in that whatever the subject matter is that is under scrutiny has to be treated in equal manner to every other subject matter that comes under investigation, no matter its significance or importance in the course of history.[3]

Therefore, just because the figure of Jesus cannot be easily separated from the Christ of faith (due to the massive permeation of Christendom in Western culture) does not give the Jesus of history a “get out of jail free” card. In other words, objective history (or at least the attempt at objective history) must attempt to “get at” the Jesus of history with little regard for the way he has been conceptualized by subsequent Christians. And perhaps in light of the very fact that this figure has exerted such a powerful influence over Western culture the task of separating the Jesus of history from the Christ of faith becomes all the more urgent. Indeed, history and the spirit of scholarship demand no less.

Lastly, I have been writing chiefly from the perspective of a historian and not that of a theologian and so my assessment of this question is admittedly prejudiced. My beginning point or axiom is “reason”. I am truly a (proud) child of the Enlightenment. And this gets to what I think is the heart of the matter in discussions about the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith. Essentially, the sticking point is epistemological. In attempting to assess the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith one has to have a beginning point: either revelation or reason. If one takes revelation as axiomatic then the Christ of faith and the Jesus of history will be impossible to separate and probably not even desired. Yet, if reason is one’s foundation then necessarily an attempt will be made to separate the two because, I would argue, reason has to assume at least the possibility that the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith are distinct.

To sum up, though I believe that Dr. Pacini is correct to say that the Jesus of history can never be completely separated from the Christ of faith this should not be construed as a theological mandate that would prohibit any attempt to engage in the reconstruction of the historical Jesus. Just because the two are so intertwined within our culture (and our way of thinking and discoursing) does not take Jesus off the hook, so to speak, when it comes to critical, historical investigation. Therefore, speaking as a historian, I believe it is both possible and desirable to at the very least make an attempt to separate the two even if, in the end, one can never force a complete separation of the Jesus of history from the Christ of faith.

---

[1] There are to my knowledge at least three possible exceptions to this observation: John Meier’s A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus (1991, 1994, 2001) series who is a Catholic priest; E.P. Sanders’ Jesus and Judaism 1985), and his more popular work The Historical Figure of Jesus (1993); Dale Allison’s Jesus the Millenarian Prophet (1997). The latter two describe themselves as liberal Protestants. However, I would probably hesitate in labeling E.P. Sanders a “Christian”. For example, see his intellectual autobiography at http://web.archive.org/web/20040617054306/www.duke.edu/religion/home/EP/Intel+autobiog+rev.pdf.

[2] The Jesus seminar could be adduced as a supporting example. However, most of the members of the Jesus seminar still believe themselves to be “Christian” in some sense and therefore, in my judgment, still engage in their scholarship from a particular “confessional” perspective.

[3] This of course forms part of Ernst Troeltsch’s famous tripartite method of historical reasoning.

God, Evolution, and...the Clitoris? Or "An Inquiry into the Evolution of the Female Orgasm"

A few times now I've mentioned my new found interest in biological evolution, particularly human evolution. This doesn't mean, however, that I've become an atheist which many believe (including both theologians and prominent evolutionary biologists) is requisite for belief in evolution, at least human evolution. No, I remain a theist and I don't believe these positions are mutually exclusive. But I just as strongly do not think any version(s) of "intelligent design" or ID should become a regular part of any public school's science curriculum (which is sadly where my State appears to be headed).

Nevertheless, in a sort of half jest I've pointed out to some of my ID friends that there are certain oddities with human physiology that appear to defy satisfactory explanation from an evolutionary perspective, thus perhaps directly pointing to an intelligent designer. My favorite one to reference is the clitoris: the seat of female orgasm. Now since time immemorial women have known that the chief area of stimulation for them to reach orgasm lies at/in their clitoris (unfortunately some men come upon this revelation much too late to the chagrin of their female mates). And though some women can achieve orgasm through vaginal intercourse most can only do so through direct or at least indirect stimulation of the clitoris. Furthermore, many studies have borne this out over the last half century or so. (Since I'm sure the majority of women can personally attest to what I've just said it may seem a bit odd that I'm about to back my claims with some scientific studies but hey I'm trying to be as academic about this topic as possible.)

There are three in particular worth mentioning briefly here. First, there was the Kinsey report of 1953, one of the first academic studies (aside from some of the eccentric studies done by Freud) dealing with human sexuality. In the volume released that dealt with female sexuality it reported that out of a sample of 8,000 women only about 15 percent could reach orgasm through means other than clitoral stimulation whether during masturbation and/or sexual intercourse. Likewise, Masters and Johnson's book of 1966 had similar results in its study and concluded that "female orgasms are identical in physiology and clitoral in origin." And lastly The Hite Report of 1976 found that out of a sample of 3,000 women less than 25 percent could reach orgasm without at least indirect stimulation of the clitoris leading Shere Hite to conclude that "not to have orgasm from intercourse is the experience of the majority of women."

But what bearing does any of this have on evolution and intelligent design? Well, if one assumes that evolution occurs because of the utility of a newly evolved trait (and its subsequent replication in a species) then the existence of the clitoris seems problematic for the theory of evolution. To make sense of this argument let's consider the reproductive organ of males: the penis. The evolution of the penis makes sense because the peak of sexual excitement in a male occurs during ejaculation which of course usually takes place during vaginal intercourse that then leads (usually) to the further propagation of the species. In other words on an evolutionary account the appearance and development of the penis makes perfect sense because of the immediate and direct function it has in promoting the continuation of a species. However, the same cannot be said for the clitoris because it doesn't appear to perform any direct function in the reproduction of the species. Another way to think about this is that one would expect the interior of the vagina to be the primary site of female orgasm because that is the site of reproduction but as mentioned above it clearly isn't. To the contrary, the clitoris is decidedly away from the primary site for reproduction. In a nutshell, the existence of the clitoris is difficult to explain on the basis of evolutionary theory because it doesn't appear to have a basis in utility. Thus, the origin of my half jest that all one need do is point to the clitoris as proof of God's existence.

Of course when you think you've hit upon an original insight it is almost always the case that someone else had already done so long before you did. And that was the case here because a couple of weeks ago I stumbled upon this very issue in an essay by the late paleo-biologist Stephen Jay Gould entitled "Male Nipples and Clitoral Ripples" (it can be found in a collection of natural history essays by Gould in Bully for Brontosaurus). In this essay he deals with the difficulty in explaining male nipples and, for our purposes, the clitoris in terms of evolution. (For those curious about male nipples I would encourage you to read the essay though as you will see in a moment the solution to this puzzle is the same for both) And to my surprise he offers what I think is a very satisfactory account for the evolution of the clitoris.

But before revealing this explanation it's best to point out a misunderstanding (or perhaps, better, incomplete understanding) many have about how evolution works (this included me until reading Gould's essay). This "incomplete" grasp of evolution has to do with what I stated above, namely, the belief that a trait/characteristic evolves solely because it performs some sort of direct function for a species. In other words, the explanation for why a certain trait/characteristic evolved and developed must necessarily be for an adaptive purpose. Or as Gould puts it, "many are committed to a 'pop' form of Darwinianism that adopts a principle of pervasive utility for all parts of all creatures." (126)

However, as Gould notes a proper, holistic grasp of evolutionary theory holds that traits in an organism can also evolve for "structural nonadaptive" reasons, i.e, evolution may produce a structure in an organism that at least initially doesn't serve any purpose. And as Gould emphasizes in his essay modern evolutionary theory operates from a synthesis of both functional and structural perspectives.

With this in mind the explanation for the evolution of the clitoris is actually rather simple and has to do with a structure produced by evolution, namely, the human embryo. Perhaps it's best to just let Gould elaborate at this point:

"Both sexes are variants upon a single ground plan, elaborated in later embryology...the external differences between male and female develop gradually from an early embryo so generalized that its sex cannot be easily determined. The clitoris and the penis are one and the same organ, identical in early form, but later enlarged in male fetuses through the action of testosterone." (127)

Thus:

"The reason for a clitoral site of orgasm is simple...the clitoris is the homologue of the penis-it is the same organ, endowed with the same anatomical organization and capacity of response." (129)

So then the clitoris and the penis are homologous structures and it is through subsequent sexual differentiation that the reproductive organs of the respective sexes appear; evolution having produced this structure or "ground plan" in the human organism. And there you have it: a satisfactory, evolutionary account of the origins of the clitoris. Sorry ID friends but I'm afraid that the clitoris is no longer proof that God exists.

*Note: the solution for male nipples is the same: the result of sexual differentiation from homologous structures. Also, Gould does note a few who actually try to account for the evolution of the clitoris from a purely adaptive perspective (e.g., as a means of pair bonding). He also takes on some of the ridiculous arguments of Freud concerning human female sexuality. For those interested I would encourage you to read the entire essay.

A Promise Broken and Another Promise Made

Well, unfortunately I'm going to have to break my promise on blogging about Libya. Even after having read those few books I still don't feel informed enough to write a scholarly post about Libya and Qaddafi so I'm going to delay writing about the current events happening there until I've read more. However, I do have a post pretty much ready to be put up but because I'm going to be out of town this Easter weekend I'm not going to post it until Monday.

I decided to have some fun with the upcoming post since it will be my first substantial one since returning from Afghanistan. Plus, I've noticed that one of my most popular posts continues to be the masturbation and Seinfeld one because, I assume, of its sexual content. I therefore took advantage of the fact that sex still sells in composing the next post. However, since it is Good Friday I do want to leave you with something I wrote many years ago about the difficulty in determining when the historical Jesus actually died and its implications for biblical inerrancy. Beware though it is a bit lengthy. Here are the links. Enjoy.

1.) Introduction
2.) Part 1
3.) Part 2
4.) Part 3
5.) Excursus
6.) Part 4
7.) Part 5
8.) Conclusion

A Reminder Concerning the Difficulties Involved in Attempting to Authenticate the Sayings Attributed to Jesus by the Gospel Writers

I have a lot of blogs that I keep up with as anyone who has perused my links has surely observed. This means that I've been doing a lot of catching up on my reading of them in the last several days which is why I haven't really posted anything lately (in addition to having been on a mission). So as I was catching up on Loren Rosson's blog (still a favorite of mine that I've been following since 2005) I came across his post concerning Mk 9:1 and the historical Jesus which was a poignant reminder to me of the difficulty involved in the historian's task of determining with any degree of certainty what the historical Jesus actually said. Here's the (in)famous saying:

"I say to you that there are some of those standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God come in power." (Mk 9:1)

For historical Jesus scholars this has always been a particularly difficult passage because a reasonable case can be made for settling on any of the following options:

(a) concluding it to be an authentic saying of Jesus due to its implication that Jesus made a false prophecy which the early Church surely would have found embarrassing making it highly unlikely that this saying was created by the nascent Christian community (this being based on the so-called criterion of embarrassment)

(b) determining that the early Church in fact created this saying as a means of comforting those bereft with disappointment that the "end" had not yet come (Loren cites I Thess 4:13-18 and I Cor 15:51-53 as early examples of this within the developing Christian community)

(c) asserting some sort of synthesis of the above, e.g., that the historical Jesus said something in substance akin to this saying but that the early Church modified it to fit the context of what they were going through at the time, namely, disappointment that the "end" had not yet arrived. (In the comments Dr. Goodacre suggests this last option by noting how Matthew, uncomfortable with Mark's version, subtly alters this saying to “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” emphasis mine, MT 16: 28)

Loren converts, via arguments of John Meier, from (a) to (b) while Dr. Goodacre, writing in the comments section, supports (c). For my own part I'm not sure which solution is most satisfactory given the data at hand. Part of the problem here has to do with other factors which could influence how one determines the solution such as the dating of the gospel writers' works. For example, depending on how one dates Mark's gospel (the consensus is typically 70 CE or around the Second Jewish Temple's destruction) can influence significantly how one views the authenticity or inauthenticity of this saying. To elaborate further, if one determines that Mark is written late into the 1st century then it might make more sense to view this saying as a creation of the Church because of the increasing delay between the time of the historical Jesus and the expected coming of his kingdom by his followers. Likewise, the closer to the events of the historical Jesus that one believes Mark to have been written would incline one to think the saying to be more original because the expectation of the "end" wouldn't be as prominent among the early believers.

Anyways, if I had to choose one of the three I would probably elect (c). However, as I noted in the comments the more I study the historical Jesus (and its related issues such as the Synoptic Problem whose preferred solution could also affect how one determines the authenticity of this saying) the more skeptical and pessimistic I become in regards to determining which sayings attributed to Jesus by the gospel writers actually originated with the historical Jesus. And thus after all these years I still am persuaded that E.P. Sanders' emphasis on giving priority to studying the actions of Jesus attributed to him by the gospels over the sayings of Jesus is the superior method in reconstructing the historical Jesus (here for more). This I should say is in marked contrast to where I started out in my studying of the historical Jesus so many years ago, i.e., much more sanguine about what I thought could be attributed to the historical Jesus which in my former pious Christian days (and when I was a fan of NT Wright) was just about everyone of the sayings. But that is a story for another time.

Happy Belated Birthday to Dr. Albert Schweitzer

Dr. Mark Goodacre's entry on the 14th reminded me, shamefully, of the birthday of Dr. Albert Schweitzer. Most know Dr. Schweitzer either as the medical missionary who worked in the Congo or as the Noble Prize winning humanist who fought hard to ban nuclear testing. But he was also a renown philosopher, theologian, and biblical studies scholar. For my own part it's his work in religion, specifically concerning the historical Jesus that was of most importance to me when I was in undergrad. Most scholars in the few centuries prior to Schweitzer reconstructed the historical Jesus essentially according to their own individual inclinations at the time which with some variation usually entailed an emphasis on the ethics of Jesus with a rationalist explanation of the miracles attributed to him by the gospels (though some such as David Friedrich Strauss [1808-1874] went further and suggested that the miracles were simply mythical constructs).

Schweitzer basically demolished these previous studies in a published work entitled The Quest of the Historical Jesus which did two things: (1) exhibited how prior scholars had reconstructed the historical Jesus in their own image and (2) offered it's own interpretation and analysis with "late Jewish eschatology" as the essential paradigm in which to reconstruct the historical Jesus. Schweitzer's reconstruction of the historical Jesus resulted in a deluded apocalyptic fanatic who believed his preaching would bring about the "end". But when this failed Jesus thought he could then force the "end" to come by taking upon himself the Messianic woes (which according to some of the post-exilic Hebrew literature usually was thought to precede the end times) which took the form of being crucified. However, the "end" did not come and so in this sense Jesus' mission was a failure. But for Schweitzer, who remained very religious for the rest of his life, this did not mean that Jesus no longer had any significance for he famously concluded his reconstruction of the historical Jesus with the following:

"He comes to us as one unknown, without a name, as of old by the lakeside, he came to those men who knew him not. He speaks to us the same words, "Follow thou me!", and sets us to the tasks which he has to fulfill for our time. He commands. And to those who obey him, whether they be wise or simple, he will reveal himself in the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings which they shall pass through in his fellowship, and, as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience who he is." (The Quest of the Historical Jesus, p 403)

Now Schweitzer's reconstruction of the historical Jesus has many problems but its key component, namely, the emphasis on the Jewish eschatological (apocalyptic) milieu as the paradigm for any reconstruction of the historical Jesus remains, in my opinion, unassailable. Schweitzer's work on the historical Jesus would go on to influence generations of scholars including the likes of E.P. Sanders (on whose work I have blogged about here, here, here, and here), Dale Allison, NT Wright, John Meier, et al. But eventually, Schweitzer went on to abandon his scholarly ruminations on the historical Jesus (though he did continue to dabble from time to time in Pauline studies) to become the great humanist that most remember him. He was certainly a great man and though I don't want to disparage his humanist activities it is somewhat unfortunate that he never contributed further insights to the field of historical Jesus studies. The irony here is that I too, at least for an indefinite period of time, have abandoned my own original field of study, namely, biblical studies and specifically the historical Jesus to work on other historical interests. Regardless, Albert Schweitzer was an amazing figure of history whose impact will continue to be felt. It is his memory that I wish to, belatedly, celebrate today.