Hoskyns & Davey on Jesus' Jewish Context

This statement about parallels between Jesus and his contemporaries seems ahead of its time:

 "Those modern Jewish scholars who have busied themselves with a comparison between the ethical teaching of Jesus and the ethical teaching of the rabbis have given this judgement, that there is no single moral aphorism recorded as spoken by Jesus which cannot be paralleled, and often verbally paralleled, in rabbinic literature. With this conclusion Christian scholars working in the field of rabbinics are showing more and more agreement. For example, there can be no doubt that such a saying as 'The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath' would have been regarded as a self-evident truism by the best of the rabbis. Similarly, the constant insistence by Jesus that the righteousness which God demands is a righteousness of the heart could not have been strange or new teaching." - Hoskyns and Davey's The Riddle of the New Testament (3rd ed.; London: Faber & Faber, 1947), 135.

Hoskyns and Davey's statement of the difference strikes me as on track:

"It is not sufficient merely to draw up a list of parallels between his teaching and that of the rabbis. What requires explanation is the authority with which he spoke, the urgency which accompanied his moral demands, and the evident judgement of God which he declared would inevitably follow any refusal to obey him" (136).

The Riddle of the New Testament

I first encountered Sir Edwyn Hoskyns in Stephen Neill's fantastic history of The Interpretation of the New Testament, and have been intrigued by Hoskyns and Davey's The Riddle of the New Testament (3rd ed.; London: Faber & Faber, 1947) ever since reading Markus Bockmuehl's Seeing the Word. Neill calls it "a series of hammer blows, at what . . .was a widespread understanding of the gospels" (215). It is that, but it is also a series of hammer blows against theological liberalism, for, as Neill explains,  "[T]he most important thing of all about Hoskyns was that, like Karl Barth, he was a converted liberal" (213).

As one would expect from a book first published in 1931, parts of The Riddle of the New Testament are rather dated. I find the authors a little too confident in the results of historical criticism. However, it is worth your time at least as much as C.F.D. Moule's Birth of the New Testament, and it is an easier (and shorter) read. In many respects it seems far ahead of its time. It is also a model of clarity, forceful argument, and verve. The whole book is written around the riddle of the relationship between Jesus and the church:

"There is a riddle in the New Testament. And it is a riddle neither of literary criticism, nor of date and authorship, nor of the historicity of this or that episode. The riddle is a theological riddle, which is insoluble apart from the solution of an historical problem. What was the relation between Jesus of Nazareth and the primitive Christian church? That is the riddle. The New Testament documents, all of them, emerged from the primitive church. They reflected piety and encouraged faith. Was there, or was there not, a strict relationship between this rich piety and exuberant faith and the historical figure of Jesus of Nazareth? Did the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth control the life of the primitive church? or were his life and death submerged by a piety and faith wholly beyond his horizon? . . . The adequacy of the modern historical critical method is therefore finally tested by its success or failure in answering the problem of the Jesus of history. The authors of this book are confident that the critical method does survive this very severe test, and that it does disclose results, even assured results..." (12).

Hoskyn's and Davey's answer is, in a word, Yes. The life and death of Jesus controlled the life of the primitive church:

"No single strand in the evidence deprives Jesus of the conscious sense that he was bringing into being a new order and working out a purpose . . . . Nowhere in the New Testament are the writers imposing an interpretation upon a history. The history contains the purpose, and is indeed controlled by it. That is to say, the historian is dealing in the end with an historical figure fully conscious of a task which had to be done, and fully conscious also that the only future which mattered for men and women depended upon the completion of his task. The future order, which it was the purpose of Jesus to bring into being, depended upon what he said and did, and finally upon his death." (172)

I, for one, find their answer compelling.

C.F.D. Moule on the Birth of the New Testament

Although it first appeared almost 50 years ago, and was last revised in 1982, it is obvious from the quotations I've posted that I think C.F.D. Moule's, The Birth of the New Testament (3rd ed.; Harper & Row, 1982) is still well worth reading. Here's another gem:

"[I]n a genuinely Christian community there is a humility that renders mutual learning quick and easy--the intellectuals ready to learn from the silent witness of the less articulate, and vice versa." (207)

I found myself disagreeing with some of Moule's proposals--for example, that the Gospels weren't intended as preaching or that most of the NT can be dated pre-70. And, of course, one would turn elsewhere for a current introduction to Christian Origins. But for those already familiar with aspects of current scholarship, Birth offers an instructive glimpse into its history: to the giants on whose shoulders modern scholars--sometimes unknowingly--joust, and of those whose contributions have been forgotten to our collective loss.

Missing the Obvious?

Why is it that when I 'get' the need for grace, I struggle to grasp conversion? Paul never says, "Sorry, churches, I goofed." His conversion, like Augustine's, seems complete and total. To be sure, Paul insists that our whole life is to be lived through God's grace, not our own effort, but he assumes radical transformation. When he addresses failure, he exhorts people to become what they are, and to repent. He doesn't admit to being a continuing failure himself. (I assume that Paul is not talking autobiographically about his experience as a Christian in Romans 7.) Paul doesn't emphasize God's grace to forgive, he stresses grace to live. In short, Paul is not one to sympathize with moral weakness. His life and letters give little comfort to those who, like me, sometimes feel stalled, who need to start over again, and again, and again. Paul left his σκύβαλα (Phil 3:8) when he met the Messiah; what about those of us who sometimes look inside and σκύβαλα is all we see?

C.F.D. Moule on New Testament Ethics

"Strictly speaking, there are no 'cardinal' virtues in Christianity, for Christian character does not 'hinge' round the disciplined practice of virtue: it is a spontaneous growth, it is a crop of qualities springing from the seed of new life divinely sown . . .; or--more characteristically described--it is life in the new age, resulting from incorporation in the new humanity which is Christ . . . . Agape is not a virtue among other virtues so much as an impulse, divinely implanted: it is God's love for us in Christ, reflected and responded to. And what in other systems might be called virtues are the shape spontaneously taken by agape in the Christian community . . . . Therefore, although in fact many Christian qualities seem to coincide with those on the Stoic list, the difference is a radical one. The Stoic virtues are the proud struggle of the human spirit to conform to nature and to gain the mastery over weakness; the Christian virtues emerge after the recognition of sin and the confession of human helplessness: they are the result of committal to God and dependence upon him" (193-4).

"In the last analysis, it is questionable, indeed, whether a Christian ethical system, as such, can exist. Christianity is concerned with the transformation, in Christ, of personal relations. The code which provides a framework or scaffolding within which this operates must, strictly speaking, be a borrowed one, for Christianity, as such, does not offer a distinctive code or system of conduct" (274).

C.F.D. Moule, The Birth of the New Testament (3rd ed.; Harper & Row, 1982).

C.F.D. Moule on New Testament Eschatology and Football

"New Testament eschatology at its deepest level concentrates upon entering into, implementing, loyally expressing that which is already given, which is Christ: it does not say, 'How long will it be before the whistle blows for the end of the game?' but, 'Where ought I to be now, to receive the next pass?' In other words, the fact that the kick-off has taken place, that the game is on, and that we have a Captain who can lead us to victory, is all that matters." - C.F.D. Moule, The Birth of the New Testament (3rd ed.; Harper & Row, 1982), 148.

(Football = soccer, of course.)

A child's experience of transcendence

It was actually more like a parent's experience of transcendence and a child's experience of either trust or foolhardiness--I'm not sure which. She always wanted to go deeper:

"Wave, come here! My feet are dirty. Wash me!
. . . Don't pick me up Daddy!" 

She loved the surging waves, the pull of the undertow against her legs. Terrified, I was never more than inches away.

...We'll save the water safety lesson for our next trip to the beach.