Who Was Jesus?

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Many such thinkers downplay the idea that Jesus was God, let alone a member of a complex theological partnership called the Trinity. They emphasize his human qualities, in the hope that believers might better identify with him. But will most people be inspired by this sort of Jesus, who is so different from the Christ of the New Testament, who has captivated artists and peasants alike over the centuries? Will they want to stake their lives on a person about whom so little is certain and who is only dimly divine?

One of the respected voices in England calling for moderation, Canon Harvey, remembers a mentor remarking that in any historical investigation, "if you tear up the only evidence you've got, you can say anything you like." That is not a bad one-sentence summary of what has happened to higher biblical criticism. In fact, just about anything is said nowadays. Most churchgoers will prefer the assertion of Dean Robert Meye of California's Fuller Theological Seminary that "faith depends on a robust Jesus -- tangible, real, vital -- and a robust view that the Jesus available to us in the Gospels was the Jesus of history."

Indeed, one major lesson in the ruckus over Scorsese's Last Temptation is that believers do care about the historical Jesus and urgently want him to square with the figure they know through faith. They are not likely to be stirred by the less-than-robust Jesuses resulting from higher criticism. The piling up of sheer historical fact about the Galilean, however, is not sufficient. Even a clearer, more traditional Jesus of history is inadequate if he does not evoke spiritual awe. "We can, of course, discuss our different pictures of the historical Jesus until the end of time," says Tubingen's Hengel, "but to examine the biblical texts and fail to deal with questions about the truth of faith is quite uninteresting." If Jesus is uninteresting, whether in a movie or a scholar's reconstruction of the Gospels, no one will follow him.