The Jesus of History - Methods of Research

Methods of Research

While textual criticism (or lower criticism) had been practiced for centuries, a number of approaches to historical analysis and a number of criteria for evaluating the historicity of events emerged as of 18th century, as a series of "Quests for the historical Jesus" took place. At each stage of development, scholars suggested specific forms and methodologies of analysis and specific criteria to be used to determine historical validity.

The first Quest which started in 1778 was almost entirely based on biblical criticism. This was supplemented with form criticism in 1919 and redaction criticism in 1948. Form criticism began as an attempt to trace the history of the biblical material before it was written down, and may thus be seen as starting when textual criticism ends. Form criticism looks for patterns within units of biblical text and attempts to trace their origin based on the patterns. Redaction criticism may be viewed as the child of text criticism and form criticism. This approach views an author as a "redactor" i.e. someone preparing a report, and tries to understand how the redactor(s) has molded the narrative to express their own perspectives.

At the end of the first Quest (c. 1906) the criterion for multiple attestation was used and was the major additional element up to 1950s. The concept behind multiple attestation is simple: as the number of independent sources that vouch for an event increases, confidence in the historical authenticity of the event rises.

Other criteria were being developed at the same time, e.g. "double dissimilarity" in 1913, "least distinctiveness" in 1919 and "coherence and consistency" in 1921. The criterion of double dissimilarity views a reported saying or action of Jesus as possibly authentic, if it is dissimilar from both the Judaism of his time and also from the traditions of the early Christianity that immediately followed him. The least distinctiveness criterion relies on the assumption that when stories are passed from person to person, the peripheral, least distinct elements may be distorted, but the central element remains unchanged. The criterion of "coherence and consistency" states that material can be used only when other material has been identified as authentic to corroborate it.

The second Quest was launched in 1953, and along with it the criterion of embarrassment was introduced. This criterion states that a group is unlikely to invent a story that would be embarrassing to themselves. The criterion of "historical plausibility" was introduced in 1997, after the start of the third Quest in 1988. This principle analyzes the plausibility of an event in terms of two separate components: contextual plausibility and consequential plausibility, i.e. the historical context needs to be suitable, as well as the consequences.