Anthony Le Donne. Historical Jesus: What Can We Know and How Can We Know It? Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2011. Kindle Edition.
Anthony Le Donne’s Historical Jesus is one of the finest short works I’ve read on historical Jesus studies, human memory, and historiography. Le Donne positions himself as a “postmodern historian” whose task is not to find Jesus behind his literary sources but in their midst (pp. 9-10). This is an important part of his project. He sees modernist historiography as a sort of archaeological endeavor where the historian must dig underneath the narrative to find the “real” Jesus. At that point this Jesus emerges as someone very different than how he was remembered. For Le Donne the place to begin is at the narratives themselves since this is where the memories of Jesus were preserved.
In the early part of the book the author invites us to think about perception, interpretation and their relationship with how we form memories. Our memories cannot retain everything that occurs, so we distill particular aspects of an event, zoom in on them (something called memory “distortion”) in order to preserve those parts, and interpret them in the framework of our worldview so that they have areas with which to connect. If we humans did not go through this process it is hard to see how we would remember anything.
This impacts Jesus studies because it means the memories of Jesus are not simply “what happened” but “what happened as ‘remembered’ by those who saw Jesus.” Included in this cycle are the oral stories that were told that reformed the memories for new audiences.
Le Donne provides some wonderful examples of this process. The most recent and relevant was his comparison of how Barack Obama framed his campaign in the legacy of Abraham Lincoln (pp. 37-39). Obama’s roots in Illinois, his place as a senator, and even where he chose to announce his candidacy where symbols of Lincoln. It allowed people to see him as a “new Lincoln” and his actions were intentional.
Jesus’ actions intentionally mimicked the narratives of the Hebrew Scriptures so that Jesus could frame himself in relation to people like Moses and Elijah. In addition, Jesus’ disciples in the early generations found ways of remembering his deeds and retelling his stories by merging them with the stories and symbols of Scripture.
In the second part of the book Le Donne moves the reader into the hermeneutical circle, but his main goal is to get the reader even further into a broader circle of preconception, memories, altered meanings, and altered memories (e.g. p. 66). This is how he explains the evolution of Jesus traditions. They perceived something (a “miracle”), they remembered how it stood out from the surrounding events (a memory), they framed it using categories from their worldview (Jesus is a prophet like…), and then as they told the new stories in new contexts or hear the story retold by others it reshaped the narratives again and again.
Le Donne challenges those who need certainty to say something is “historical”. While he does not allow every proposal to have equal standing on the line of probability neither does he think we can find a “real”, “objective” Jesus “behind” the stories. We must ask instead is there are theories that best explain the stories and their trajectories.
Two great paragraph from Le Donne clarify his thoughts:
“Scholars determined to attain historical certainty will always be frustrated by the limits of modern presuppositions. Modern presuppositions have made skeptics out of a small (but boisterous) contingent of Jesus historians in every generation since Lessing. But the larger portion of historians have been no less guilty of a hunger for certainty. Historians who are more optimistic about historical certainty have tried to attain it through something akin to textual archaeology.” (p. 74)
“The historian who continues to look for a “preserved” Jesus has no other recourse but skepticism. The historian who is intent to find “an objectively true picture” of Jesus has simply misunderstood the historian’s task to account for varying and evolving social memories and explain their most plausible relationship.” (p. 76).
So again, our task is not to find the Jesus behind the narratives as much as it is to explain the “remembered” and “interpreted” Jesus.
One thing the reader will want to explore more is whether or not there are safeguards for good history. As Le Donne moves us more toward interpreting the narratives as the vehicle that contains the historical Jesus as remembered we are forced to ask whether or not we can find the Jesus of history at all. Le Donne is comfortable with multiple pictures of Jesus and allow the historian to be a storyteller whose story is one explaining the other stories.
A final word of Le Donne that will let you decide whether you should read this book (my answer is “yes!”):
“This is the task of the historian within a postmodern paradigm. The historian’s job is to tell the stories of memory in a way that most plausibly accounts for the available mnemonic evidence. With this in mind, the historical Jesus is not veiled by the interpretations of him. He is most available for analysis when these interpretations are most pronounced. Therefore, the historical Jesus is clearly seen through the lenses of editorial agenda, theological reflection, and intentional counter-memory.” (p. 134).
the archives near Emmaus 
Intriguing. That’s more than I’d gathered of LeDonne before now, and more encouraging than I’d suspected it might be. Worth more looking into, then. So thanks very much.
Any chance you’re interested in attending the Illinois conference this October?
‘Jesus’ actions intentionally mimicked the narratives of the Hebrew Scriptures so that Jesus could frame himself in relation to people like Moses and Elijah.’
Too right. There was a great deal of intentional mimicking of the narratives of the Hebrew Scriptures to allow this sort of framing to happen.
For example, Jesus fell asleep just before a storm was calmed, because Jonah was also sleeping just before the storm was calmed.
Even the disciples were aware of the imperative nature of mimicking the Hebrew scriptures (as translated into Greek)
Matthew 8:25:- ‘they went and woke him, saying, Save (soson), Lord (kyrie), we are perishing. (apollymetha) Cf Jonah 1:6, So the captain came and said to him, What do you mean, you sleeper? Arise, call upon your God (Kyrie)! Perhaps your God will give a thought to us. (Greek ‘save us’ diasose), that we do not perish (apollometha).
. In Mark 4 the disciples ‘feared with great fear (ephobethesan phobon megan)’. In Jonah (LXX) ‘feared the men with great fear’ (ephobethesan hoi andres phobon megan)
Even bystanders to miracles were aware of this intentional mimicking and carried it through.
For example, Mark 5:42 says that after a miracle of the raising of a dead child, the parents were ‘amazed with great amazement’ (exestesan ekstasei megale), while 2 Kings 4:13 we have ‘amazed with all amazement’ (exestesas… pasan ten ekstasin tauten) after a dead child was raised.
Jairus in Mark 5 falls at Jesus’s feet, as he knew he had to intentional mimic what the parent in 2 Kings 4 did before a dead child was raised..
Who can doubt the historicity of such events once Mr. Le Donne has reminded them of the intentional mimicking that the disciples and Jesus and other people in the Gospels carried out?
Bill
I am interested in the conference, but I am saving for a move later this year and AAR/SBL the following month so it doesn’t look probable.
Steven
Some could doubt it since they might see these things as inventions of the Evangelists who framed Jesus stories through the Hebrew Scriptures, but that is part of the push back. It shouldn’t be so black-and-white. The process of memory and framing those memories in familiar categories could very well go back to Jesus’ very intentional actions.
‘The process of memory and framing those memories in familiar categories could very well go back to Jesus’ very intentional actions.’
Presumably the boy ‘paidarion’ who brought barley bread would have the very intentional action of emulating the ‘paidarion’ who brought Elisha barley bread when Elisha had a crowd of people to feed and managed to have food left over after the miracle.
I assume that Mr. Le Donne managed to produce some evidence that these stories were memories and not as invented as tales of the child Jesus killing people.
Steven:
I read the book over a period of three months, so it is hard for me to remember if there was a point where he felt obligated to defend his point. I think he was comfortable with arguing that we may not be able to divide the events behind the text from the narratives in which they are captured, but that attempts to argue for radical division between Jesus’ actions as the symbolism of Scripture are misguided in that they ignore that many of the Jesus traditions were likely begun as Jesus saw himself reenacting Scripture intentionally.
‘…..many of the Jesus traditions were likely begun as Jesus saw himself reenacting Scripture intentionally.’
You mean Jesus knew he had to fall asleep while the disciples were in a storm so severe that experienced sailors feared for their lives?
So Jesus intentionally reeanacted Jonah falling asleep before the calming of a storm?
No, that is not what I’m saying. More like this: Let’s say Jesus wanted to evoke memories of Moses he may have intentionally found himself coming down from a higher place alluding to words attributed to Moses and telling the audience, “But I say…” much like Obama chose Springfield to announce his candidacy in order to evoke memories of Lincoln. Jesus may have entered the temple to judge it as a symbolic action that communicate that he saw himself as YHWH’s agent coming to judge the nation. As Jesus’ followers saw these types of activities it created a precedent for framing Jesus’ actions in the language and structure of the Hebrew Scriptures. So as the story of Jesus calming the story is told they’ve already come to think in terms of Scripture and they frame the story in categories familiar to other ones, in this instance Jonah.
So some of the stories may have similarities because Jesus was intentional about his actions. Others because his followers followed this lead in associating memories/stories of Jesus with Scripture.
‘Jesus’ actions intentionally mimicked the narratives of the Hebrew Scriptures so that Jesus could frame himself in relation to people like Moses and Elijah.’
Yes, yes, Jesus was a brilliant pantomime.
Interesting how I indirectly found this review, Brian (and thanks… interesting and useful to me!), now a full year “late”. I just read Nijay Gupta’s review on Crux Sola on “Jesus, Criteria, and the Demise of Authenticity (via Le Donne and Keith’s blog).
Since I missed (wasn’t even aware of your blog) your review back then, please let me know if you get notified and read this (it will have a couple points very important to me). First, the book looks real good. Altho I’ve read his and Keith’s blog a handful of times, I’d not noted about this book there or elsewhere. What you say about the book seems to go along closely with some of what is in the book I mentioned above which Gupta just reviewed. I appreciated that review a lot for it’s “common sense” approach, but not trivially or superficially so, it would appear.
The point I wanted to make about both books and which I think pertains to the way you seem to think, approach things, etc. is this: As far as I’ve been able to discover there is a major “missing ingredient” in what is available to both biblical/religious scholars (including church leaders) and lay people of faith. (Of course I’m not even close to “objective” as it pertains to my own “specializations” in my interdisciplinary studies). That is much material that is recent at all which deals with the personal-psychological and social-psychological side of faith and of endeavors of historical, theological, etc. study. Sure it is there interwoven and around the edges continually, but not self-consciously so. These areas are not treated systematically and with practical application to what most people actually believe, how they apply (or don’t) their faith, how that affects them psychologically, what IS “religion of the healthy-minded” (to borrow Wm. James’ phrase), etc.
What do you think?
Personally, I haven’t studied the psychological side of religion, especially as it relates to historical events or literature. I don’t have enough training in psychology to do so. I enjoy reading about neuroscience, since it may provide insight into how people see, experience, and remember this or that, and I find the memory studies being done by folk like Le Donne and Keith to be quite interesting, but I am an observer at best.