Introduction
Introduction
Figure 1 Jesus Obscured.
This detail is from a wall painting depicting the story of Jesus (right) and his follower Peter (left) walking on water. Peter steps out of a boat onto the water with Jesus, but then Peter starts to sink—one can indeed see the waves starting to come up over him, and he is reaching out to Jesus to save him. This is a crude picture, taken from the house church in Dura-Europos, Syria; it could be the oldest datable depiction of Jesus. Archaeologists have dated the work to 233–256 CE, painted a mere 200 years after the alleged event took place. Image courtesy of Yale University Art Gallery.
I think this is a very appropriate picture to start the book. We see a story about Jesus, yet the figure of Jesus is shadowy and ill-defined. It sums up the starting point—Jesus obscured.
This book is a definitive and complete inquiry into the authentic Jesus. This Jesus is based on rational thinking, the simplest conjectures, and the best available sources of information. This project’s building blocks are ideas derived from the critical method of inquiry, often inspired by academic sources. The critical method is concerned with avoiding, in the case of religious writings, religious doctrine and human bias by applying a non-sectarian, reason-based approach to arrive at reasonable conclusions. As Christopher Hitchens put it: “That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”[1] I do not want Salt & Light to be so easily dismissed.
The Three Questions
As with any journey, it is essential to be clear on the destination to keep us on course, so in the interest of clarity and brevity, I propose the Three Questions to be our guide. The purpose, then, of this book is to answer, as best as possible, the following simple questions:
1. What did Jesus do?
2. What did Jesus say?
3. Who was Jesus?
But first things first. Do we need to engage in this project at all? The fastest way to read a book is to discover that you do not need to read it. Two scenarios need investigation before going any further, for if either is correct, then there is no need for this book.
First, I must tackle the minority scholarly view that Jesus never existed … that is, he is a myth. If this is true, this will be a very short book, and we need not proceed any further. So I must review this fascinating idea first before proceeding.
Second, if Jesus did exist, the next step is to review current opinions on Jesus to see if others have already completed this project. In other words, have the Three Questions been answered and are these answers reasonable and widely held? If there are excellent existing answers, Salt & Light is not needed, and I will not proceed any further other than to repeat the answers to the questions. Suppose there is general confusion within current opinions about Jesus? In that case, I will need to embark on this project by starting from ground zero, casting a wide net and examining everything about Jesus without bias, and then proceed to answer the Three Questions.
[1] (Hitchens 2009, 258)
