On Sunday, I read a quotation from Anne Rice concerning her perspective on Jesus. It is fascinating that this former atheist was able to see so much bias in the way many scholars handle the historicity of the gospel accounts.
Below is something I wrote about this last year, with some additional quotations.
* * *
Christ the Lord?
Anne Rice, whose previous books include Interview with a Vampire and Queen of the Damned, recently converted to Christianity. Hers is the Roman Catholic variety, and she retains some questionable beliefs. Her recent novel is entitled Christ the Lord. In an afterward, she tells the fascinating story of her research into the historical reliability of the gospels.
As you hopefully recognize, “Jesus scholars” come in many varieties. There are those who embrace Jesus as Lord, and those who do not. Those who do not often appear on television speaking about the “historical Jesus,” who surprisingly seems far removed from what we read in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. It is a radical branch of this type of “scholarship” that undergirds the radically popular Da Vinci Code novel.
In Anne Rice’s pursuit to learn the truth about the one who called himself the “Son of God,” she ran across different approaches to him. Here is what she has to say:
Many of these scholars, scholars who apparently devoted their life to New Testament scholarship, disliked Jesus Christ. Some pitied him as a hopeless failure. Others sneered at him, and some felt an outright contempt. This came between the lines of the books. …
I’d never come across this kind of emotion in any other field of research, at least not to this extent. It was puzzling.
The people who go into Elizabethan studies don’t set out to prove that Queen Elizabeth I was a fool. They don’t personally dislike her. They don’t make snickering remarks about her, or spend their careers trying to pick apart her historical reputation. … Occasionally a scholar studies a villain, yes. But even then, the author generally ends up arguing for the good points of a villain or for his or her place in history, or for some mitigating circumstance, that redeems the study itself. … [I]n general, scholars don’t spend their lives in the company of historical figures they openly despise. (Christ the Lord, p.314)
Her studies led her to the following conclusion:
In sum, the whole case for the nondivine Jesus who stumbled into Jerusalem and somehow got crucified by nobody and and had nothing to do with the founding of Christianity and would be horrified if he knew about it -- that whole picture which floated in the liberal circles I frequented as an atheist for thirty years -- that case was not made. Not only was it not made, I discovered in this field some of the worst and most biased scholarship I'd ever read.(pp.313-314)
It is important for believers and unbelievers alike to recognize that scholarship is not free from bias. How much more is this true when dealing with the one who called himself "the way, the truth, and the life"!
Is it even possible to be unbiased concerning a historical figure who demanded an answer to the question, “Who do you say that I am?”
After all, the answer to that question demands a changed life!
Below is something I wrote about this last year, with some additional quotations.
* * *
Christ the Lord?
Anne Rice, whose previous books include Interview with a Vampire and Queen of the Damned, recently converted to Christianity. Hers is the Roman Catholic variety, and she retains some questionable beliefs. Her recent novel is entitled Christ the Lord. In an afterward, she tells the fascinating story of her research into the historical reliability of the gospels.
As you hopefully recognize, “Jesus scholars” come in many varieties. There are those who embrace Jesus as Lord, and those who do not. Those who do not often appear on television speaking about the “historical Jesus,” who surprisingly seems far removed from what we read in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. It is a radical branch of this type of “scholarship” that undergirds the radically popular Da Vinci Code novel.
In Anne Rice’s pursuit to learn the truth about the one who called himself the “Son of God,” she ran across different approaches to him. Here is what she has to say:
Many of these scholars, scholars who apparently devoted their life to New Testament scholarship, disliked Jesus Christ. Some pitied him as a hopeless failure. Others sneered at him, and some felt an outright contempt. This came between the lines of the books. …
I’d never come across this kind of emotion in any other field of research, at least not to this extent. It was puzzling.
The people who go into Elizabethan studies don’t set out to prove that Queen Elizabeth I was a fool. They don’t personally dislike her. They don’t make snickering remarks about her, or spend their careers trying to pick apart her historical reputation. … Occasionally a scholar studies a villain, yes. But even then, the author generally ends up arguing for the good points of a villain or for his or her place in history, or for some mitigating circumstance, that redeems the study itself. … [I]n general, scholars don’t spend their lives in the company of historical figures they openly despise. (Christ the Lord, p.314)
Her studies led her to the following conclusion:
In sum, the whole case for the nondivine Jesus who stumbled into Jerusalem and somehow got crucified by nobody and and had nothing to do with the founding of Christianity and would be horrified if he knew about it -- that whole picture which floated in the liberal circles I frequented as an atheist for thirty years -- that case was not made. Not only was it not made, I discovered in this field some of the worst and most biased scholarship I'd ever read.(pp.313-314)
It is important for believers and unbelievers alike to recognize that scholarship is not free from bias. How much more is this true when dealing with the one who called himself "the way, the truth, and the life"!
Is it even possible to be unbiased concerning a historical figure who demanded an answer to the question, “Who do you say that I am?”
After all, the answer to that question demands a changed life!
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