Is this really the historical Jesus?

A great scholar's methodology has let him down, says Philip McCosker The Authentic Gospel of Jesus by Geza Vermes, Allen Lane £20 Geza Vermes, emeritus Professor of Jewish Studies at Oxford, has made a large contribution to the study of Jesus in his Jewish context, both with his translation of the Dead Sea Scrolls (now the standard edition). as well as his trilogy: Jesus the Jew (1973); Jesus and the World of JtuJaism (1983) and The Religion of Jesus the Jew (1993).
Providential Accidents, his fascinating and moving autobiography, appeared in 1998. A Hungarian Jew received into the Church at the age of seven, Vermes joined the Fathers of Notre-Dame de Sion (after considering the Jesuits and Dominicans) and studied in Louvain, where he was much excited by the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947, and was ordained In I950. Subsequently, however, he met his future wife in England and left the order, eventually joining the Liberal Jewish Synagogue of London in 1970 to "regularise his position". Since coming to England, he has taught in Newcastle and Oxford.
Disappointingly, his latest book does not live up to the expectations created by his previous work.
Vermes undertakes a scrutiny of all the sayings attributed to Jesus in the gospels. His aim is to rediscover the "genuine religious message preached and practised by him". In order to do this, he tells us that he will only consider evidence from the synoptic gospels, for they are the earliest and least "doctrinally manipulated"; he rarely brings evidence from Paul and John.
He analyses the sayings under nine headings: narratives and commands; controversy stories; words of wisdom; teaching in parables; quoting or interpreting scripture; prayers and related instructions; "Son of Man" sayings; sayings about the kingdom of God, and eschatological rules of behaviour. In each chapter, the sayings are printed first, followed by Vermes's comments in smaller type. Unnecessarily, the comments often open with a paraphrase of the gospel passages printed above, yet frequently they relate fascinating details of Jewish life and teaching at the time of Jesus. They are the most striking and valuable part of the work, and help us see that, as he puts it, Jesus was a Jew born and bred.
What picture of Jesus emerges from Vermes's investigation? This Jesus is a prophet driven by the. proximity of the end times, a devout and wonder-working Hasid, a moralist, discreet yet haughty, humourless, given to exaggeration and the twisting of metaphors. Vermes's Jesus ministered only to the Jews and instructed his disciples to do the same. His teaching was not systematic and he did not foresee his death on the cross. He was a narrow-minded chauvinist, a product of his time. The quintessence of Jesus' message is to be found in the Lord's Prayer. Occasional touches of humour lighten the book: one hears of the "Keep the Galilean countryside clean" campaign after the feeding of the five thousand, of Jesus's "unhygienichealing methods, and of the first evangelist's "characteristic schizophrenia". There are a number of problems with Vermes's picture and the way it is drawn. We must remember that this book falls within the ongoing "quests" for the historical Jesus. The concern of the current quest is to explore Jesus's Jewish context. Since 1985, a vast quantity of literature has been produced, of which Vermes's work is a significant part, as was the scholarly reaction to it. Strangely, this book makes no reference to this quest for the historical Jesus (except to criticise rightly the notorious Jesus Seminar).
One looks in vain for any interaction with the exciting work of other "pesters". Most references in the book are to Vermes's other books. The few references to New Testament scholarship are generally dated; indeed, Rudolf Bultmann, cited as a contemporary scholar, died in 1976. Needless to say, each scholar writing on the historical Jesus has a different Jesus to offer. Consequently, one cannot hope to produce a credible picture of Jesus and his message without engaging with competing portrayals.
The most important differences among scholars of the historical Jesus concern sources and methodology: different sources and methods will produce a distinctive Jesus. Vermes's method and treatment of sources are problematic. His aim is a Protestant one: to sep arate scripture and tradition and thus get back to the "real Jesus". The assumption is that there is a pristine gospel buried under layers of ecclesiaI accretion, which can be rediscovered when a suitable archaeological method is employed.
However, he largely ignores (except when dealing with the Last Supper) the letters of Paul, which by his admission were written before any of the gospels. By contrast, the work of N T Wright is marked by sustained engagement with this material for this very reason. This is ironical, given the fact that Vermes is prepared to relate accounts of Hanina ben Dosa and Honi the Circle Drawer (charismatic Jewish holy men who were contemporaries of Jesus) which come to us from rabbinical sources. These were only finalised between the third and fifth centuries, and yet he discounts other documents, closer in time and concern to the person he is attempting to describe.
I poo often, Vermes's judg -i-1 ments are delivered with out argumentation, but I poo often, Vermes's judg out argumentation, but simply because a particular saying displays "an air of authenticity" or the "sound of authenticity". He says of the account of the walking on the water: "This is a folk legend", without any further discussion. This is not adequate. There are complex criteria of authenticity which would have been better deployed for each saying, rather than only the sayings collectively in the last chapter. Indeed, it is only in the penultimate chapter that Vermes tells us that he is going to "put my cards on the table and reveal my presuppositions".
When Vermes first wrote Jesus the Jew, he could credibly try to uncover the personality and message of Jesus simply by looking at his titles or sayings, but this is no longer the case. It is now considered reductive to extract the sayings of Jesus from the gospels, for their authors (whose editorial work he is constantly pointing out) put the texts together as wholes; thus the whole of the text is important, as well as the interrelation between all its parts. Venues's method of extracting the sayings and grouping them under headings of his own devising largely disregards the narrative of the gospels.
It is hard to see to whom this hook is addressed. The general reader will find references to German books published in 1898 obscure, while specialists will miss engagement with recent work. But for both groups this book will challenge presuppositions about Jesus and I strongly encourage you to argue with it.