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Overview
Anthony Le Donne begins with the unusual step of considering human perception — how sensory data from sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell are interpreted from the very beginning by what we expect, what we’ve learned, and how we categorize the world. In this way Le Donne shows how historical memories are initially formed. He continues with the nature of human memory and how it interacts with group memories. Finally, he offers a philosophy of history and uses it to outline three dimensions from the life of Jesus: his dysfunctional family, his politics, and his final confrontation in Jerusalem.
This little book is ideal for those with no background in religious studies — even those with no faith — who wish to better understand who Jesus was and how we can know what we do know about him.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780802865267 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Eerdmans, William B. Publishing Company |
| Publication date: | 02/01/2011 |
| Pages: | 160 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.40(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
HISTORICAL JESUS
What Can We Know and How Can We Know It?By Anthony Le Donne
William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
Copyright © 2011 Anthony Le DonneAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8028-6526-7
Chapter One
QUESTIONS ITotally Mental?
To speak of studying the mind of Jesus from within may seem presumptuous; but no other method is of the slightest value. R. G. Collingwood
Was Jesus ever married? Did he ever have sex? Did he have sexual thoughts? He wasn't genderless, was he? Sexuality is a prerequisite of gender, isn't it? Did Jesus have a sexual identity?
How self-aware was Jesus anyway? Did Jesus think he was a messiah? Did he think he was more than a messiah? Did he have a divinity complex? Did Jesus' mother think he was from God? Did she tell him this? What kind of person would do that to a kid?! Was Jesus a psychological mess? Did people think that he was crazy?
Wasn't Jesus' family life just a big cover-up? Didn't his followers try to keep embarrassing details about Jesus a secret? Aren't the stories about Jesus just fictions? Weren't they invented to illustrate disputes between early Christians? If there did happen to be "historical" stories in the Bible, how would we know? Wouldn't it be impossible to separate the memory-stories from the made-up-stories?
Does the Bible provide us with any historical data that tells of Jesus' personal goals? Did he really aspire to be an exorcist? Did Jesus' contemporaries believe that he could bring about acts of God? The supernatural? What could lead somebody to such a belief? What would it take to convince you that you just saw a supernatural event? Is it even a matter of convincing? Or is it something more primary — some primary conception of reality embedded in the mind of the perceiver?
PERCEPTION I
Thinking from the Outside In
Science is nothing but perception. Plato
The question that kicks off this discussion goes like this: How does a person gain access to her thoughts? Or, put another way, how does a person relate to his mental content? As questions go, this is one of the most foundational. Our relationship to the world around us — people, things, ideas — is all filtered through our thoughts. We relate to the rest of the world based on our thoughts, whether they are conscious or subconscious. So in order to relate to people, things, and ideas we must relate in some way to our own mental content. The question is how?
I start with this question because, once upon a time, Jesus made a historical impact that was perceived by his contemporaries. Indeed, even before Jesus became a historical figure, he was the object of people's perceptions. In other words, people saw his actions, heard his words, felt his touch. Therefore it will be necessary to have some understanding of how perception functions. It is perception that shapes the nature of Jesus' impact from the very beginning.
In order to provide a postmodern perspective to this discussion, we must first dialogue with the quintessential herald of modern philosophy, René Descartes (1596-1650). I must briefly qualify my comments by saying that these few paragraphs will not sum up the key points of Descartes' legacy. Those unfamiliar with Descartes will need to go elsewhere to learn more about his most influential ideas. I will not introduce his general impact. I begin instead with just one concept that Descartes championed: the mind's eye.
Like most philosophers (both ancient and contemporary), Descartes measured his own ideas first and foremost with the ideas of Socrates, and Plato (c. 427-348 BCE). Plato taught that the content of a person's mind (knowledge/science) was remembered by the "preservation of perception." Plato's mentor, Socrates (c. 469-399 BCE), described this in visual terms, "Just as we make impressions from seal rings; and whatever is imprinted we remember and know as long as its image lasts." This concept of seeing mental images the way the eye sees physical objects was passed on for generations. Descartes inherited this model at the dawn of the modern world.
Now, there can be no doubt that visualization is an important function of the human mind; I have no problem with the metaphor of "seeing" our thoughts. But we run into trouble when this process is oversimplified. Our minds are complex beyond any single metaphor. I think that an oversimplification on this point is where Descartes went wrong.
Descartes believed that people have a rather simple (or direct) relationship with their thoughts. He argued that people have the capacity to gain access to their thoughts in the same way that they can perceive by seeing (seeing was considered to be a direct, simple, and immediate sensation). Descartes held that a person's ability to relate to his own thoughts is without error. He did allow for errors due to lapses in judgment like prejudice or an overdependence on physical sensation, but for Descartes, these were considered exceptions to the rule. His "rule" was that you have a front-row seat to what is going on inside your mind and that you can "see" this content simply and clearly.
Philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), for the most part, agreed with Descartes and took this idea a step further. He argued that a person's relationship to his/her thoughts is direct, without error and non-perspectival, meaning that there is no barrier, filter, or lens between you and your thoughts. In other words, no perspective is needed to be introspective.
Russell also suggested that a person is able to "suppose" or "judge" without any influence from the outside world. You might recognize the problems with this model straight away. But before we dismiss Descartes and Russell too hastily, let us consider if there might be good reasons for describing mental content like they do.
Take, for example, the experience of pain. When you experience pain, you don't say, "I think this hurts!" No, you say, "This hurts!" Seemingly, people do not need to think about whether or not they hurt — they just hurt. Whatever thoughts are involved in the experience of pain are (so it seems) immediate and without the need of "perspective."
This line of reasoning may seem intuitive, but it cannot be taken too far before it becomes problematic. Because in order to deal with pain, people must interpret their pain. Perhaps a more specific example of pain will be helpful:
Imagine that a person, we'll call him Jason, is in a nasty car accident. He bought a red convertible during his midlife crisis and flipped it. Imagine that Jason's toes are crushed in the accident and that he is knocked unconscious. He is rushed to the hospital and the surgeon is forced to amputate the better part of both his feet. Jason eventually regains consciousness and declares, "Good grief, I feel horrible! I have a stomachache, my jaw is sore, and my toes hurt!"
Now, if Jason had not mentioned his "toes," there would be no reason to correct him. No doctor with any bedside manner would say, "I'm sorry, my dear fellow, you only think that your jaw hurts." No doctor I wish to know would ever say, "You poor confused man! It would be more correct to say that your relationship with your mental content has caused you to interpret a stomachache." We just don't casually think of our mental content (in this case, pain) like this. And even if we did, it would be a boorish thing to say. Nobody appreciates overcomplication! And yet, the doctor is forced to say something remarkably similar to this in response to Jason's relationship to his "toe pain."
The doctor must tell Jason that he is actually feeling what amputees refer to as "ghost pain." Since Jason no longer has toes, he cannot be experiencing pain in his toes. And yet his severed nerve endings are still transmitting signals of pain that his brain interprets as toe pain. So the doctor has to explain, "You only think that your toes hurt...." The doctor has to teach Jason something about human anatomy for him to properly interpret his pain. Jason's experience of his pain is now guided by his relationship to a doctor who is "external," a member of the world outside his mind. In reality, Jason's thought-world was guided by the outside world from the beginning, but he had not considered this before he needed help interpreting his sense of touch. While most thought processes seem intuitive, Jason's situation shows that there is a much more complicated reality behind every perception.
... there is no thought, no feeling, no conception of mental content that presents itself to the person without interpretation.
My point is not that people shouldn't trust their thoughts. My point is that every thought, conscious or subconscious, is the result of interpretation and has some relationship with the external world — other people, things, ideas. It's not that Jason's nerves were lying to his brain. Generally speaking, his brain was interacting with his nervous signals in the same way in each case of pain. He had no reason to mistrust his jaw pain or his stomachache. It just so happened that, in the case of his toes, Jason had no previous frame of reference from which to judge the kind of pain that he was experiencing. His mental content was therefore categorized as "toe pain" — the brain's closest frame of reference.
Contrary to Descartes and Russell, there is no thought, no feeling, no conception of mental content that presents itself to the person without interpretation. Even our most "direct" and "immediate" thoughts must be categorized in order to make sense of them. And the fact is, much of this interpretation (via category recognition) happens on a subconscious level.
Culture Focus A: Jesus Was a Jew Most of our stories about Jesus come from what Christians call the New Testament. The NT is a collection of narratives, letters, and visions that constitutes the final one-fourth of most Bibles. Some of these books were written as early as fifteen years after Jesus died. Some of this material was written as late as 100 years after. What is often overlooked is the fact that the NT was composed, for the most part, by deeply religious Jews. There are a few exceptions, but most of the books in the NT were composed by Jews, for Jews, about matters of Jewish theology. This is because Jesus' first followers, his first audiences, his first adversaries, and his first believers and skeptics were Jewish folk. So in order to understand Jesus' words, we must try to hear him as his contemporaries heard him. We must try to understand Jesus as he intended to be understood in that context. No doubt, each member of Jesus' audience saw and heard him differently, but what they all had in common was a particular culture. And in Jesus' context, culture and religion were not often separated. For example, before Jesus was well known, he was baptized by a popular teacher named John. Now, in our context, baptism is an act of conversion. But in that context, baptism was a purification ritual. It was meant to prepare people to worship the God of Israel. Jesus was a Jew, and he never converted.
Philosopher Tyler Burge has argued that mental content is dependent upon the relationship between individual persons and the external world. We get our categories from the things, people, and ideas in our environment. Burge's position is known as Externalism, or Anti-Individualism, as he argues against the overly individualistic stance of Descartes. Burge's position has become the dominant position on this matter among analytic philosophers.
I did my doctoral work in England. This required two educations, one having to do with theology and the other with British culture. And perhaps the most important thing to learn about any culture is what to call dessert. In Britain, dessert is called "pudding." It doesn't matter if it's cake, pie, truffles, or chocolate goo. "Pudding" is a general word that denotes the sweet part of the meal that arrives after the main course. This is relevant to my discussion of mental content because of the interesting problem created by this cultural category.
To an American, "pudding" is a much narrower category. Pudding is gelatinous. It is generally eaten with a spoon. It is most often chocolate, vanilla, butterscotch, or tapioca. It is the stuff that Bill Cosby advertises. Chocolate cheesecake with blackberry topping is not pudding. When I order chocolate cheesecake with blackberry topping from an American menu, I don't think that I am going to get pudding. On the other hand, if the Queen orders chocolate cheesecake with blackberry topping, she thinks that she's going to get "pudding." Because, for her, chocolate cheesecake with blackberry topping is "pudding." The point is that the nature of your thought is dependent upon your relationship to your external environment. As mentioned already, this is what philosophers call Externalism or Anti-Individualism.
When you think about an individual thing (e.g., pudding) you have to separate that individual thing from other mental categories. This is what philosophers call Individuation. When in the USA, I individuate pie from pudding upon recognition. But when I am in the UK, I recognize pie as "pudding." Those that argue for Anti-Individualism are not merely saying that words have different meanings in different contexts. Anti-Individualism is the idea that people's thoughts are dependent on their relationships with the outside world (that is, the world external to the mind).
So far, I have tried to emphasize the necessary relationship between thought and interpretation. It must be said in no uncertain terms that the very act of thinking requires interpretation. Every perception is necessarily interpreted by other familiar thought categories.
... the very act of thinking requires interpretation.
The illustration of Jason's pain provides an example of perception by touch. Let's look at another example of perception, this time by sight recognition. A while back, my mother sent me a "thought experiment" by email. It took the form of a mass email forward (which I would normally delete immediately — happily, I read this one). It went like this:
Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabirgde Uinervtisy, it deo'snt mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.
This paragraph aptly illustrates the essential function of thought categories. In this case, we're dealing with thought categories exemplified in language. If you were able to read this paragraph with any success it is because you were able to project an interpretation onto each word. More than that, you were able to project an interpretation that deviated from what was originally typed. The word "porbelm" has no intrinsic meaning. However, in the given context the word "problem" seems to fit best. Therefore, the fluent English-reader projects this familiar word onto the nonsensical word to make sense of it.
This illustration only works if the words represent familiar thought categories. For example, the paragraph above credits this study to "Cmabirgde Uinervtisy." In fact, this study was first done at the "Uinervtisy of Ntgahintom." Now, if you're not from the United Kingdom, you may have more trouble with the word "Ntgahintom." This is because the University of Nottingham is not as well known an institution outside of the UK. But because almost everyone has heard of Cambridge, the word "Cmabirgde" is able to evoke this familiar thought category. Simply, Cambridge is a more familiar thought category than is Nottingham for most people.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from HISTORICAL JESUS by Anthony Le Donne Copyright © 2011 by Anthony Le Donne. Excerpted by permission of William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Foreword Dale C. Allison Jr ix
In Gratitude xiv
Beginnings 3
Part 1
Questions I Totally Mental? 13
Perception I Thinking from the Outside In 15
Memory I Family Matters 24
History I A Type of Now 33
Jesus I Dysfunctional Family 42
Part 2
Questions II Could It Be…Satan? 55
Perception II Understanding Is Construing 56
Memory II Variation and Stability 65
History II Between Certainty and History 72
Jesus II Talking Politics 81
Part 3
Questions III Do You Think You're What They Say You Are? 95
Perception III Believing Is Seeing 96
Memory III Through a Glass Darkly 106
History III If Memory Serves 111
Jesus III The Big Stage 120
New Beginnings 133
Notes 136