ETS 2003, Atlanta, Georgia
Excavating Jesus or Inventing a Jesus?
9
pends upon whether the central events actually occurred.
34
Bock also is helpful in clarifying
the issue when he states,
One of the problems in the pursuit of historical Jesus questions is that a knowledge of
the scriptural story is either lost or greatly devalued, even though is the Gospel portraits
of Jesus that have been the real source of historical impact.
35
With the text of Scripture minimalized, the authors rely most heavily on their interpretation
of archaeological data and sociological models to excavate Jesus.
Part Two:
Archaeological Evidence and Social Science Criticism
in the Excavation of Jesus
The relatively new field of Social Science Criticism of the Bible has been particularly
focused on the New Testament Gospel accounts and is foundational to the conclusions of Ex-
cavating Jesus. As noted the methodologies that are utilized are often questionable and their
application is also often uneven.
36
One writer has defined the purpose and goals of Social
Science Criticism as follows:
The specific aim of social science criticism, as a dimension of the exegetical enterprise,
is to expose, examine and explain the specifically social features and dimensions of the
text, its author(s), recipients, and their relations, its social context, and its intended im-
pact. Its general objective is the analysis, synthesis, and interpretation of the social as
well as the literary and ideological (theological) dimensions of a text, the correlation of
these textual features, and the manner in which it was designed as a persuasive vehicle
of communication and social interaction, and thus an instrument of social as well as lite-
rary theological consequence.
37
34
George Ernest Wright. God Who Acts: Biblical Theology as Recital. Studies in Biblical Theology 8. (Lon-
don: SCM Press, 1952): 126.
35
Darrell L. Bock. Jesus According to the Scripture: Restoring the Portrait from the Gospels. (Grand Rapids,
Michigan: Baker Books, 2002): 50.
36
Mulholland, Sociological Criticism, p. 179.
37
John H. Elliott. Social-Scientific Criticism of a Biblical Text, in Social-Scientific Approaches to New Tes-
tament Interpretation. David G. Horrell (ed). (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1999): 340.