Robert E. Van Voorst

Robert E. Van Voorst (born June 5, 1952) is an American theologian and educator.

Quotes

Jesus Outside the New Testament (2000)

Robert E. Van Voorst, Jesus Outside the New Testament. An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids/Cambridge 2000. ISBN 978-0-8028-4368-5

• The New Testament has traditionally been the main source for our understanding of Jesus' life and teaching, and often the only source. Until about one hundred years ago, scholars did little or no search for Jesus in sources outside the New Testament. [...] Today this situation is almost fully changed. The New Testament, while still considered canonical by the church, no longer has a priviledged place in most scholarship.
  • pp. 2-3.

• Third Quest researchers show a significantly greater interest in extracanonical Christian literature than did First and Second Quest writers. The Gospel of Thomas and the Nag Hammadi literature figure most prominently in current Jesus study, with other New Testament Apocrypha books like the Gospel of Peter not far behind. Only classical sources on Jesus are an exception to this trend; the Third Quest too does not deal with them in depth. Only a few large-scale recent treatments of Jesus deal with evidence from classical sources. In sum, the last twenty years have arguably seen more interest in, and debate about, the historical Jesus outside the New Testament than any comparable period in the last two centuries.
  • pp. 4-5.

• Marx would incorporate Bauer's ideas of the mythical origins of Jesus into his ideology, and official Soviet literature and other Communist propaganda later spread this claim.
  • p. 10.

• The most prolific and persistent contemporary critic of the historicity of Jesus is George A. Wells (1926-), longtime professor of German in Birkbeck College, London. [...] Although Wells has been probably the most able advocate of the nonstoricity theory, he has not been persuasive and is now almost alone voice for it. The theory of Jesus' nonexistence is now effectively dead as a scholarly question.
  • pp. 13-14.

• The earliest possible reference to Jesus comes from the middle of the first century. Around 55 C.E., a historian named Thallos wrote in Greek a three-volume chronicle of the Eastern Mditerranean area from the fall of Troy to about 50 C.E. Most of his book, like the vast majority of ancient literature, perished, but not before it was quoted by Sextus Julius Africanus (ca. 160-ca 240), a Christian writer, in his History of the World (ca. 220§). This book likewise was lost, but one of his citations of Thallos was taken up by the Byzantine historian Georius Syncellus in his Chronicle (ca. 800). [...] This fragment of Thallos used by Julius Africanus comes in a section in which Julius deals with the portents during the crucifixion of Jesus. Julius argues that Thallos was "wrong" to argue that this was only a solar eclipse, because at full moon a solar eclipse is impossible, and the Passoverr always falls at full moon. Julius counters that the solar eclipse was miracolous, a darkness induced by God. Thallos could have mentioned the eclipse with no reference to Jesus. But it is some likely that Julius, who had access to the context of this quotation in Thallos and who (to judge from other fragments) was generally a careful user of his sources, was correct in reading it as a hostile reference to Jesus' death. The context of Julius shows that he is refuting Thallos' argument that the darkness is not religiously significant. [...]

  Who is Thallos? Perhaps he is the Thallos to whom the Jewish historian Josephus refers, a Samaritan resident of Rome who made a large loan to Agrippa (Ant. 18.6.4 § 167) and who may have been Augustus's secretary. But this rest upon two successive conjectures, one textual and one historical. [...] The proposed emendation adds a theta to [the Greek word] allos to make it "Thallos". The second conjecture identifies this proposed Thallos in Josephus with the Thallos mentioned by Julius Africanus and Eusebius. Since this name is not common and since the first-century time is the same, this identification is at least possible. Unfortunately for this argument, we have no other record of this Thallos as a writer.

  (If our dating is correct) [Thallos was] the first ancient writer known to us to express literary opposition to Christianity. Moreover, Thallos is also the only non-Christian to write about a Jesus tradition before that tradition was written in the canonical Gospels.

  • pp. 20-23.

• (About Pliny the Younger) [He is] the most famous civilian administrator in imperial times. [...] Pliny is credited with inventing the genre of the literary letter. His letters run from short personal notes to polished essays about a variety of topics. [...] The last bok of his letters (Book 10), published after his death and written in a simple, more straight forward style than the rior books, preserves Pliny's correspondance to Emperor Trajan from his post as governor of Pontus-Bithynia in Asia Minor (111-113).[...]

  Letter 96 of Book 10, the most discussed of al Pliny letters, deals with Christians and mentions Christ. Since the leters of this book seem to be chronologicaly ordered, Letter 96 may come from 112 C.E.

  • pp. 23-24.

• Trajan's rescript says nothing about Christ, only Christians. The text of these two letters is well-atested and stablr, and their authenticity is not seriously disputed. Their style matches that of the other letters of Book 10, and they were known already by the time of Tertullian (fl. 196-212). [...] Murray J. Harris has adduced good reasons to conclude that Letter 96 has not been interpolated by a Christian scribe. Christian interpolators would not testify to Christian apostasy or predict that mosy Christians would return to Greco-Romansgods if given the chance. Neither would they speak so disparigingly of Christianity, calling it amentia ("madness"), superstitio prova ("depraved superstition"), or contagio ("contagion"). Moreover, a predominantly negative tone toward Christianity is spread throughout Letters 96 and 97, one that no Christian would convey. [...] Letter 96 contains the first non-Christian description of early Christian worship.
  • pp. 26-27.

• Background knowledge of Christianity and Christ may have come from Tacitus,Pliny's friend (Letter 1.7, addressed to Tacitus, talks of their long friendship; they often exchanged their writings for comment). [...] Pliny, however, shows no knowledge of Christian writings in this letter.
  • p. 27.