History and Faith

What is the relationship between my faith as a Christian and history?


This is the basic question that I want to explore in a few blog posts over the next few days.  It is a question that I wrestle with on a daily basis as a biblical scholar (which basically entails doing historical investigation) who is also a confessing and believing Christian.  It is the question that, I believe, is usually at the heart of all the various kinds of questions I am asked by Christian laymen concerning the Bible.  All of the "What about when the Bible says _______ happened?" questions fall under this basic question.  So, without further ado, let me lay before you what I believe is the unquestionable answer to this question, and then try to defend it.


The Christian faith is worthless apart from the validity of the central historical claims that it makes.


You cannot have "faith" in the biblical, Christian definition and be unconcerned with history, because the content of the Christian faith is explicitly historical.  Paul says it this way:


"But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?  If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.  And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.  More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised.  For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either.  And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.  Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost.  If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied."  (1 Cor 15:12-19)


There is hardly any need to paraphrase, but I will for the sake of repetition: If the historical event of Jesus of Nazareth's resurrection did not occur, then the implications for the Christian faith are: (1) our gospel preaching is meaningless; (2) ministers of this gospel are found to be liars; (3) your faith is futile and you are still dead in your sins; (4) we Christians are the most pitiable people of all.


Some have proposed--and still today propose--that the Christian faith is essentially a faith in a set of "ideas."  This would make the historical dimension unnecessary, because ideas cannot be bound to any particular history. (cf. "Lessing's Ditch")  Ironically, I sometimes catch the very people who would be the first to advocate for the historicity of the Bible making this argument implicitly.  When we say things like "The Christian faith is about the forgiveness of sins," or ". . . a personal relationship with Jesus," or ". . . being saved," we are often implicitly saying that these "ideas" are what the Christian faith is all about and we can "be saved" by appropriating these ideas for ourselves. (cf. Bultmann's existentialism)  But if these ideas are divorced from the history proposed in the scriptures, then we are no longer talking about the "Christian faith" at all.


The content of the Christian faith is not a set of abstract ideas--even an idea as "Christian-sounding" as "Jesus saves."  The idea alone is not enough.  It is a faith in a particular history of events that the scriptures call us to, and if they are wrong then we are fools.


So we Christians simply cannot be unconcerned with historical questions.  We cannot be unconcerned with whether or not the things recorded in the Gospels and elsewhere in the scriptures really did occur.  (This will, obviously, cause problems . . . which I hope to address in a future blog.)  The Christian faith is not a faith in "ideas" but in a particular history.


"For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve.  After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.  Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born." (1 Cor 15:3-8)