Who was Jesus? Why it’s so hard to know The author examines several methods
that have evolved over the centuries in interpretation of the New Testament.
Scholars try various ways to find the facts of who Jesus was and how he did the
things he did. Supernatural histories were one method of explanation of the
events in the New Testament. During the pre-Enlightenment years, scholars
explained that events in the bible as actual truths, things that have happened
for fact and by word. Science hadn’t been used for reasoning yet and methods
for understanding things like sickness and natural catastrophes were always
linked to a supernatural source. Natural histories evolved during the
enlightenment period as a logical method of understanding ancient scriptures.
This rationalistic view of the bible insists that events and “miracles” of
the New Testament were in fact misunderstandings of science and natural laws at
the time when science wasn’t understood. Things were labeled a miracle because
the concepts to understand these things were yet available. Myths were
introduced by a German philosopher David Strauss. Myths were religious stories
that could happen but didn’t really. Instead the myth is to teach a religious
meaning through interpretation. Biblical stories vary from author to author,
especially within the 4 Gospels. Each book tells basically the same story in
conflicting ways. The birth, life and death of Jesus is told but yet every
Gospel varies from the other in story. These conflictions bring up questions of
fact, authenticity, and reality.