His earlier post to me combined these:
I have no plan to talk him out of the 1st issue.
I’m an American, but I’m not in any position to do anything about American evangelicalism.
As for his argument about compassion, I’ve said all that I need to say.
For example, Terry, this is one of the reasons why I said that his view seems very outdated on the subject
The creed we find in 1 Cor 15:3–5, as it has already been shown, did not really have time to “develop” in any meaningful sense, since it stands too close to the events themselves. Most modern scholars agree that its date falls within a range extending from a few months to, at most, two or three years after Jesus’ death.
But on the broader issue we were discussing (namely, the development of traditions) maybe Rob should consider the following:
“If, as I shall argue in this book, the period between the ‘historical’ Jesus and the Gospels was actually spanned, not by anonymous community transmission, but by the continuing presence and testimony of the eyewitnesses, who remained the authoritative sources of their traditions until their deaths, then the usual ways of thinking of oral tradition are not appropriate at all.”— Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2006), p. 12.
“Our argument is rather that the continuity of the Gospels is with the testimony of the eyewitnesses, not via a long period of community transmission but through, in many cases, immediate access to the eyewitnesses or, in other cases, probably no more than one intermediary.”— Richard Bauckham, again from the same book, this time from page 136
“The fact that the form critics neglected the factor of living memory and treated the transmission of Gospel traditions as analogous to transmission over much longer periods accounts for the impression one often gets from reading modern Gospels scholarship that the period between the events and the Gospels was a very much longer one than it actually was. In fact, it was the period in which the eyewitnesses were still alive and available to tell their stories.”— Richard Bauckham, this time from “The Transmission of the Gospel Traditions,” in Actes du Congrès La Recherche du Jésus historique (2009), p. 383.
By contrast, Rob seems to hold a historical-critical view that is, as I said, badly outdated.
Let me quote Bultmann, for example, who was probably the most important scholar representing the early “mythical” view of the historical Jesus, this is what he said: “I do indeed think that we can know almost nothing concerning the life and personality of Jesus, since the early Christian sources show no interest in either, are moreover fragmentary and often legendary; and other sources about Jesus do not exist.”— Rudolf Bultmann, Jesus and the Word (New York: Scribner’s, 1958 19261926), p. 14.
Also, in the late nineteenth century, scholars such as Bruno Bauer, Abraham Loman, Rudolf Steck, and Willem C. van Manen rejected the authenticity of all the Pauline letters, including 1 Corinthians, arguing that their developed theology pointed to a period later than the mid-first century.
This kind of reductive view of the historicity of the Gospels and the New Testament is, in 2026, extremely outdated and is essentially no longer held by any serious contemporary scholar. I can understand why someone might still find it appealing, but modern historiography has, for all intents and purposes, moved beyond it.
The real problem is that those bridges imply either the negation or the relativization of Jesus, and I don’t think any Christian is willing to cross them. As for the rest, I look forward to your posts. As I said, I always appreciate them, even when I disagree. :))
P.s
All the best for your wife! Hope she recovers soon.
Thank you for your gracious reply. We agree to disagree. I would just point out something.
In the category of understanding that arises from lived experience. In this sphere, the encounter with reality is not primarily analytical but experiential. It involves the interior life—conscience, compassion, suffering, love, and the moments of awareness that people often describe as spiritual or mystical. In this domain, subjectivity cannot simply be excluded, because it is precisely through subjective experience that human beings become aware of meaning, value, and transcendence.
The current lived experience of most of the people in the world is that conscience, compassion and love are not something that your country is showing at present. The religious and influential are power-oriented and seem to be bent on Armageddon, creating suffering rather than reducing it. These influential religious personalities have put a man on a throne whose character was known to be as antithetical to Jesus as anyone, which makes me wonder whether it is the doctrine that has led to this.
Maybe it is time for moments of awareness that people often describe as spiritual or mystical, so that conscience, compassion and love can take over and reduce suffering and help heal the “least of us,” because, as the King says, “When you help them, you do it this to me.”
I agree with both viewpoints.
The core of the gospel is visible from the start of the Jesus-movement. In that sense, it has not developed to something else, although the theological jargon has changed. The earliest Christians did not speak using words like ‘Trinity’, ‘soteriology’ or ‘pneumatology’ but the core beliefs behind the various words appear to be the same.
The other side of the coin is that the liturgical side, organization of the church and the interpretation of some doctrinal issues have changed. You may see these developments as a move from general to more detailed formulations but an external observer, like an alien above earth, would record these changes as historical development of religious traditions.
If I compare the history of Christianity to what happened in the ancient Egypt before the Roman rule (3000 years of evolving religious beliefs and practices), the traditions within Christianity have not changed that much. If I compare the current situation to what the earliest documents about the Jesus-movement reveal, I would say that religious traditions have developed historically. How much - well, that is a matter of interpretation.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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