521 - Trajectories Through Early Christianity

Trajectories Through Early Christianity
By James M. Robinson and Helmut Koester
297 pp. Philadelphia, Fortress Press, 1971. $9.95.

No one has done more in recent years than James Robinson and Helmut Koester to inject a sense of urgency and excitement into New Testament studies. We have in this volume eight studies, four by each of the collaborators, of which, respectively, two have been published before. The four already published are appropriately re-presented together in one volume since each marked a suggestive new departure in research and coheres with the others in a developing point of view. Robinson's contributions are his paper to the centennial meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, (2) "Kerygma. and History in the New Testament," and the fine study (3) "Logoi Sophon: On the Gattung of Q" for the Bultmann Dankesgabe, Zeit und Geschichte. Koester's studies are both from the Harvard Theological Review, (4) "Gnomai Diaphoroi: The Origin and Nature of Diversification in the History of Early Christianity" and (5) "One Jesus and Four Primitive Gospels." The new studies are Robinson's introduction, (1) "The Dismantling and Reassembling of the Categories of New Testament Scholarship," and (7) "The Johannine Trajectory" and Koester's (6) "The Structure and Criteria of Early Christian Beliefs" and the conclusion, (8) "The Intention and Scope of Trajectories."

The method advocated is essentially the history of the transmission of traditions, coupled with attention to the larger literary genres or Gattungen. For instance, in (7) Robinson shows how an understanding of John's theology depends on the solution to the source problem which,

522 - Trajectories Through Early Christianity

in turn, enables one to discern how a prior stage of tradition is interpreted in the subsequent stage, and in (6) Koester attempts to correlate the four Gattungen isolated in (5) with the "context," "event," "belief," and "sociological implications" which are historically involved in the formulation of the genre. A significant feature of Koester's contribution is the emphasis on the diversity of the earliest traditions about Jesus, which, going back to Walter Bauer, he correlates chiefly with geographical rather than temporal differences.

The essential problem which these men wrestle with is that of continuity within diversity. We may now take it as established that, as von Rad showed in the Old Testament, there is an interpretation and conflict of traditions going on within the New Testament and early Christianity which renders all categories like heresy and orthodoxy, historical Jesus and kerygma, Palestinian- and Hellenistic-Jewish so fluid as to be inadequate for structuring the historical discussion. What category then shall one use? Our authors propose the overarching one of "trajectory," and since one cannot take up the many discrete questions which arise along the way through these essays, it might be profitable to devote some attention to this metaphor.

One assumes that the metaphor "trajectory" is intended in its primary sense of "the path traced by a missile" rather than in the specialized sense of a curve that cuts all other curves in a geometric system at a constant angle. Our authors, in company with the growing company of the heirs of Bultmann and von Rad, have traced various paths quite effectively; however, the "missile" is never described. Sometimes, as on p. 9, one gets the impression that there is no missile at all but that everything is in flux in a "dynamic, historic, existence/process-oriented new metaphysics." At other times, however, there is "the ongoing linguistic transaction in which the kerygmatic point is successively scored in ever changing historical circumstances" (p. 28), which is further explicated by the statement that "language is not simply verbalizing. It conveys a point that can be heard by careful listening. And then that point can be scored in other language . . ." (p. 27). It seems that the "point" is the constant element, the "missile" which traces the trajectory. One is reminded here of the distinction made by Frege between a proposition and a sentence, according to which the former is a quasi-idealistic abstraction "connoted" or "signified" by the linguistic entity, the sentence (See Jean Ladriére, L'Articulation du sens, discours scientifique et parole de la foi, pp. 20-23). Or, again, in the form of the question about the criterion for judging among the traditions, Koester answers the problem of the element of continuity as follows: "For Christian theology, such criteria can only come out of the historical event of Jesus of Nazareth, as long as it con-

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tinues to maintain that this is the event through which God himself set the stage for something new . . ." (p. 206). This suggests that a knowledge of at least the intentionality of the historical Jesus is necessary if we today are to be discriminating in our appropriation of the New Testament traditions. But the matter is not that simple for Koester who writes elsewhere, in comment on Käsemann's question, "Does the New Testament kerygma count the historical Jesus among the criteria of its own validity?" as follows: "Accordingly, we are confronted, not with the quest for a new image of Jesus to be used as a norm for true belief, but with the question, whether and in which way that which has happened historically, i.e., in the earthly Jesus of Nazareth, is present in each given case as the criterion-not necessarily as the content--of Christian proclamation and theology." Perhaps the operative word here is "new" before "image," since it seems clear that an image of the historical Jesus is essential if we are to recognize when such is being used as a criterion by the earliest Christians.

At this point the reviewer yields in frustration to the limitations of space. In conclusion one notes with a smile the fulfillment of Bultmann's prophecy about the resurgence of liberalism in the church (Introduction to Harnack's What is Christianity?, p. xvii). Here from his school we have a rejection of the canon, an implied call for effective knowledge of the historical Jesus, and an emphasis on the sociological context of earliest Christianity. We welcome this turn of events. It is instructive to compare the program set out here with that of Brevard Childs in Biblical Theology in Crisis, who calls for serious attention to the canon.

There is much work still to be done in New Testament studies. These essays themselves need considerable refinement, and they open up many new paths to be explored, or, should we say, "trajectories" to be traced and mapped.

R. G. Hamerton-Kelly
McCormick Theological Seminary
Chicago, Illinois