A film narrative oriented to
an investigation of Christianity is tailor-made to illustrate the potential of
film as a medium to convey abstract ideas and theories. In The Case for Christ (2017), a skeptical journalist—Lee
Strobel—takes on the contention that Jesus’ resurrection in the Gospels was
also a historical event (i.e., happened historically). Lee states the
proposition that he will investigate as follows: “The entire Christian faith
hinges on the resurrection of Jesus. If it didn’t happen, it’s a house of
cards. He’s reduced to a misunderstood rabbi at best; at worst, he was a
lunatic who was martyred.” The journalist’s initial position is that the
resurrection didn’t happen historically; it is just part of a faith narrative
(i.e., the Gospels). Lee wants to test the proposition by interviewing experts.
The dialogues between the journalist unschooled in theology and the scholars of
religion provide a way in which complex ideas and arguments can be broken down
for the viewer and digested. The journalist stands as a translator of sorts
similar to a teacher’s function in breaking down knowledge new to students so
they can grasp and digest it.
The journalist attends a
debate between two scholars of religion, Singer and Habermas, on the historical
Jesus movement in Biblical hermeneutics—that is, on what the Gospels, as faith narratives, can tell us about Jesus
as a historical person. Singer denies that information in a faith narrative, or
myth, can be taken as historical evidence. Logically, to treat a religious text
as a historical account is to commit a category mistake (i.e., ignoring the
distinction between two categories). For one thing, the incorporation of
history into a faith narrative serves religious points, which are of a higher
priority than historical accuracy. In writing a religious narrative, the
writer’s intent is not to provide a historical account; historians do that.
For example, the synoptic
Gospels differ on when the Last Supper takes place relative to Passover.
Different theological points are being made. Jesus being crucified during
Passover likens him to the animals sacrificed in Exodus. Jesus is the Lamb of
God. Were the authorial intent to provide a historical account, this
theological point could not be made if the historical Jesus was crucified after
Passover. It makes sense that a writer who is religious would be more faithful
to his theology than to history. The Gospel writers selectively appropriated
historical accounts without verifying them as historians would have done. In
fact, the writers would even have been inclined, given how important their
faith was to them, to take sayings passed on orally as unfettered (i.e.,
unbiased) historical accounts.
A Gospel writer (and Paul)
could have written things as if they were historical to make theological
points. Paul’s miraculous experience on the road to Damascus provides the man
who had prosecuted Christians with status in Jesus’ inner circle. The
historical nomenclature tends to crystalize over centuries as the historical
“fact” eclipses Paul’s religious reason for portraying the miracle as having
really happened (i.e., as an event in empirical history). That is, the
authorial intent in making an event seem historical by using historical
nomenclature is often overlooked by faith-readers, especially in an era in
which empirical facts are the gold standard covering even religion. Therefore,
Singer’s position is that the Gospels cannot be assumed to be reliable sources of
historical information.
Habermas answers Singer by
claiming that the Gospels are indeed reliable sources of historical events. As
a public event, the crucifixion would have had witnesses—sympathizers and
critics. Habermas points out that an atheist school of thought “now believes
that the earliest known report of the resurrection was formed no later than
three years after the Cross.” Habermas cites a book by Gurd Luderman, which
discusses the report. Unlike Singer, Habermas believes that the obvious faith-interest
of the sympathetic witnesses in the resurrection having really occurred would not cause them to lie. That many witnesses
saw Jesus after he resurrected adds to Habermas’ confidence.
It is interesting that in
using the word, really, to refer to history, I have just committed a common
error wherein even in religious matters, the historical criteria trumps, or is
more real, than religious truth,
whose reality comes to us by symbol, myth, and ritual. The religious truth of
the resurrection is contained in the Gospels, whose theological truths
transcend history, just as the Creator transcends Creation.
Implicit in Habermas’ position
is the rhetorical question: why would people of faith lie? Why would people
deeply motivated by religious truth violate truth itself by fabricating their
historical accounts of Jesus after his resurrection? Habermas would likely
dismiss the “ends justify the means” rationale for doing bad things for a good
outcome. Fundamentalists may be particularly susceptible to this way of
justifying doing bad things in service to a faith even though an objective
observer would see the hypocrisy. The two scholars may thus be debating, at
least in part, how human nature interacts with religion.
The journalist’s initial
position rephrased is that if the resurrection did not happen historically
(rather than only in the faith narratives), then religious truth in the faith
narratives would have no value. In other words, faith serves history rather
than vice versa in the religious domain.
To be sure, it can be argued that if the historical Jesus did not “really”
resurrect in physical body and spirit, then his true followers will not
resurrect after their physical death. The religious truth necessitates the
historical event, yet no reliable (i.e., independent of the faith narratives)
historical account exists. The journalist and Habermas are thus diametrically
opposed.
Historians overwhelming
contend that the Jesus passage in Jewish
Antiquities, written by Flavius Josephus, a Jewish historian who covered
Jesus’ period in Judaea, was actually added subsequently in order to include
Christian faith claims that go beyond what a historian would include in writing
history, and what a Jew would believe and thus proselytize through writing
“history.” The journalist would strongly agree that historical accounts that
are separate from faith narratives can be susceptible to interpolated (i.e.,
injected) faith material that is portrayed as historical. Josephus mentions
Jesus and his followers, though “close in style and content to the creeds that
were composed two or three centuries after Josephus.”[1]
Specifically, Josephus’ uses of “the Greek verb forms such as aorists and
participles are distinct in the passage on Jesus.” They are “different than the
forms that Josephus uses in other [Pontius] Pilate episodes, and these
differences amount to a difference in genre.”[2]
The passage on Jesus is close to the Gospels, which are faith narratives,
whereas the other events involving Pilate are written in verb forms used by
historians to write histories.
A Jewish historian such as Josephus would not have been inclined to
include Christian faith-claims, especially as part of a historical account. For
example, the parenthetical () “if indeed one ought to call him a man” is not a
historical fact and not something to which a Jew would subscribe. Furthermore, Josephus
did not use the literary device of parentheticals except in his passage on
Jesus. This suggests that a later Christian editor or copyist may have inserted
material within sentences to include elements of the Christian faith (even
inserting phrases within sentences distinct from the sentences’ contents)
morphed into historical content by means of historical nomenclature (i.e.,
using words that make something seem historical). That is, the interlarded
additions in the passage on Jesus conflate two distinct genres, faith
narratives and historical accounts.
As a Jew and a historian, Josephus would not
likely have written that Jesus was a teacher to people willing to “accept the
truth.” This is not a historical statement, for truth is not a historical
event. This applies also to the statement, “He was the Messiah.” Finally, the
statement that after three days, Jesus was “restored to life” (i.e.,
resurrected) is not something that a Jew would take as a historical event.[3]
Interestingly, not even Habermas sites Josephus; rather, the religious scholar
relies on witnesses in the Gospels, thus conflating the two genres: myth (i.e.,
faith narratives) and history.[4]
Singer points out that taking witnesses in a faith narrative as providing
historical evidence is invalid by the criteria of history.
In short, Josephus would
indeed have been a very unusual Jew had he believed these faith claims to be
valid; he would have been a deficient historian had he viewed them as
historical accounts rather than faith claims.
Justus of Tiberius, a rival
historian, did not include Jesus even though this historian “wrote in great
detail about the exact period of Tiberius’s reign that coincided with Jesus’s
ministry.”[5]
Therefore, even the validity of Josephus’ mention of Jesus as a historical
person living in the Middle East can be contested. Perhaps the entire passage
of Jesus was implanted by a later editor or copyist sympathetic to Jesus. If
so, then no historical record exists to support the claim that Jesus existed
historically rather than only in the faith narratives. We could not know
whether Jesus’ resurrection really happened by appealing to historical evidence
(e.g., witness accounts separate from those in the Gospels).
After the debate, Habermas and
the journalist sit down for a coffee. “How can anyone talk about historical
evidence for a resurrection when the resurrection is by its very nature a
miracle?” the journalist asks. “We all know miracles can’t be proven
scientifically.” The source of a miracle is outside of Creation, and thus its
natural laws and processes. “We don’t have to prove a miracle in order to prove
the resurrection, Habermas replies. “You just have to show that Jesus died and
was seen afterwards.” Interestingly, Habermas uses the word show rather than prove. This may suggest that he has already ceded some ground on
how difficult it is to prove that an event happened empirically two thousand
years ago. The journalist seizes on this vulnerability of historical studies.
“Right,” he says, “but the very people who claimed that they saw him are
religious zealots. In my line of work, we call those biased sources.” We are
back to the problem of the selective use of history in faith narratives, and in
taking Josephus’ historical account as valid historically.
Habermas dismisses the problem
of biased sources and declares, “I care about the facts.” The journalist
cleverly hinges on the problem of what constitutes a fact. “So what are the
facts, Dr. Habermas? The resurrection narrative is more legend than it is
history.” To be sure, that the resurrection is in a myth does not in itself
mean that Jesus did not resurrect historically (i.e., it was a historical
event). Even if neither the witnesses in the Gospels nor even Josephus’
historical account suffices under historical criteria, historical events have
surely gone unreported by historians. In effect, the journalist is using his
stance in the discussion as a fact. Habermas spots this fallacy and replies, “Really?
Not according to historical records. Did you know that we have a report of the
resurrection from specific eye-witnesses that dates all the way back within
months of the resurrection itself? That source also adds that five hundred
people saw Jesus at the same time.” However, because Habermas is relying on
witnesses in a faith narrative, or myth, we cannot count them as historical
witnesses. In other words, he is conflating the two genres and not offering a
counterargument to the problem of biased sources. Even the journalist falls
victim to conflating the two genres.
Replying to Habermas, the
journalist says, “That’s still just one historical source—the Bible.” Habermas
replies, “Wrong, there are at least nine ancient sources both inside and
outside the Bible confirming that disciples and others encountered Jesus after
the Crucifixion.” Notice that Habermas refers to ancient sources inside the Bible. The word ancient is a historical term. Habermas is likely invoking Josephus’
historical account, which as discussed above is problematic in itself as a
historical source. If the scholar is counting other historical accounts, he
would have to confront the consensus among historians that Josephus provides
the only mention of Jesus in a historical account (as well as the consensus
that Josephus’ account is problematic as a historical source). It would be
presumptuous of Habermas as a religious scholar to claim superiority over
historians in deciding what constitutes a valid historical account (i.e., by
criteria in the discipline of history). Would the historians then have superiority
over scholars of religion on religious questions?
Pointing to the problem of
biases sources, the journalist claims that the disciples and others who
encountered Jesus after the Crucifixion “were already followers of Jesus.” This
gives us an idea of what would be needed to have a valid historical source.
Such a witness would have be verified as independent of Jesus and his
followers, and mentioned in a historical account, which itself would have to be
authenticated. This is not to say that Jesus’ followers could not have
witnessed an event such as the resurrection and reported it orally to others. A
historical account would need more support; however, as such witnesses would
have had a faith-interest in reporting the event as empirical even though the
resurrection has religious truth-value in the faith narratives alone.
Strangely, Habermas uses Paul,
a zealot for Christ. “Think of Saul of Tsaris,” Habermas says. “He originally
was a persecutor of Christians.” However, Paul’s letters are from the
perspective of Paul as a devoted follower of Jesus. How could Habermas possibly
think that because Paul as Saul had been against the Jesus movement that he
would be unbiased after his conversion? Indeed, Paul’s own written account of
his conversion experience is subject to the point that he could have added in
his miraculous vision to legitimize himself as an apostle even though he had
not met Jesus. Also, just because Paul’s letters are historical artifacts does
not mean that their contents report historical events. Paul was not writing
historical accounts, and so his religious messages and religious-interest could
have used historical events selectively and even invented some. The warping effects
of religious ideology on cognition (and ethics) can be significant.
Habermas next accepts the
journalist’s initial premise that if Jesus’ resurrection is not a historical
event, then the Christian faith would collapse. This is so because it depends
on that historical event. Nevertheless, that faith has not collapsed, or been
discredited, and in fact Christians have even been willing to die in its
service. “If the early church fathers knew that the resurrection was a hoax, then
why would they willingly die for it?” Habermas’ assumption can be critiqued.
Firstly, that Christianity has
not collapsed does not necessarily mean that the theological resurrection in
the faith narratives happened historically. Christianity could have endured due
to the intrinsic value of the religious truth that is in the faith narratives
(and Paul’s letters). It may have been enough that those narratives depict the
resurrection as a historical event without the event having taken place
empirically (i.e., outside of the narratives).
Secondly, Habermas assumes
that if the resurrection did not occur as a historical account, then the early
Church fathers would have known that the resurrection as a historical event was
a hoax. This assumption too does not hold, for the fathers could have
erroneously assumed that the historical nomenclature (i.e., wording) used in
the faith narratives is sufficient to guarantee that the resurrection was also
a historical event (i.e., apart from its mention as such in the Gospels). That
is, the portrayal in the Gospels of the resurrection as a historical event does
not mean that the resurrection “really” happened. Furthermore, to put so much
emphasis on whether the resurrection really
happened eclipses the value of the resurrection’s religious truth-value in
the faith narratives. Lastly, Habermas assumes that if the resurrection were
not a historical event, then the church fathers would have known it. They were
not omniscient, so it is possible that the historical event did not occur and
yet the fathers assumed from the historical nomenclature in the faith
narratives, casting it in a historical light, that the resurrection must have
happened as a historical event.
Habermas then brings up the
Christian assumption that Jesus’ resurrection must have “really” happened
(i.e., historically) for Christian souls to subsequently be able to enter
heaven. Without that empirical event having taken place, no souls could go to
heaven. “I know that I’m going to see my wife again someday,” Habermas says. He
is committing a category misstate, however, in claiming that knowledge rather
than belief pertains to faith. The religious studies scholar Joseph Campbell
once asked why faith would be needed at all if were knew that heaven exists and
that we would go there. Empirical knowledge, unlike belief, requires the
certainty that scientific evidence can make more likely than can faith-claims.
Such claims are true in a religious sense, and thus provide certainty as to
religious truth, but not to empirical facts. The hold of Habermas’ religious
ideology on his epistemological knowledge (i.e., what counts as knowledge) is
responsible for his embellishment of religious belief as knowledge. The added
certainty that knowledge provides is without merit, but this is of no concern
to Habermas as the assumption of certainty conveniently aids his religious
ideology.
Habermas nonetheless declares,
“What I want and what I don’t want has no impact on truth. That said, if
Christ’s resurrection means that I get to be with Debbie again, then I have no
problem being happy with that. Sometimes truth reminds of us of what is really
important.”
I submit that what a person
wants does have a bending impact on
one’s hold on truth. That is, even though religious truth itself is changeless,
by definition, concepts of religious truth in a human mind can wittingly or
unwittingly serve the ideological interests of a mind (i.e., person). Habermas
assumes that his desire to be with his wife in heaven has no impact on his
belief that Jesus’ resurrection in the faith narratives refers to a historical
event, and, furthermore, that the historical resurrection made it possible for
souls to go to heaven. In other words, a historical event made possible a
spiritual (i.e., nonempirical) state that is outside of history. This belief is
based on an underlying belief: that of the Incarnation (i.e., God made flesh in
Jesus).
Putting aside the matters of
people who had died before the historical resurrection and non-Christians
thereafter that challenge Habermas’ belief-claims, Christian theology contends
that the Crucifixion in the Gospels, as also a historical event, makes it
possible for souls to enter heaven. Jesus’ vicarious atonement made possible by
his willingly sacrificing himself even though he is innocent makes possible the
reunification of a human being with God. Specifically, Jesus’ death pays the
price of original sin. In contrast, Jesus’ resurrection as “first fruits” means
that the saved souls that are in heaven will someday be bodily resurrected.
Therefore, even though Habermas claims to know that Jesus’ historical
resurrection made going to heaven possible, Christian theology begs to differ;
the historical resurrection made bodily resurrection possible. Habermas is thus
overstating the importance of a historical resurrection in regard to him being
able to be with his dead wife again. Put another way, even from the standpoint
of theology, we can see that embellishment can result from self-interest, which
includes the matter of the veracity (i.e., truth) of a religious ideology even
hyperextended to cover historical empirical facts.
After speaking with Habermas,
the journalist makes an appointment to speak with a Roman Catholic priest whose
specialty is biblical manuscripts. Especially because Christians rely so much
on the faith narratives in believing that the resurrection was also a
historical event, the question of the manuscripts’ authenticity is highly
relevant. Specifically, the question can be raised as to whether the
manuscripts we have are accurate copies of the originals. Just as a Christian
copyist may have added the non-historical faith claims to Josephus’ reference
to Jesus and his followers, copyists may have embellished the biblical
manuscripts by adding miracles and even claiming that they “really” happened.
That is, copyists may have used history as a justifying basis for religious
truth rather than in sufficing to treat the latter as being intrinsically valid
in its own domain, and thus as needing no validation from other domains.
The journalist first points
out to the priest, “Just because I write something down and bury it in dirt, it
doesn’t make it true. How can we be sure of the reliability of these
manuscripts?” The priest answers, “The same way we authenticate any historical document—by
comparing and contrasting the copies that have been recovered. It’s called
textual criticism. The more copies we have, the better we can cross-reference,
and determine if the original was historically accurate, and the earlier they
come in history, the better.” If a biblical passage is in all of the extant
copies—and even better, word for word—then the chances is higher that a copyist
did not tamper with the passage. It would still be possible, however, for
changes to have been made by a copyist that are reflected in all of the extant
copies available now. This would be increasingly possible the earlier the
copyist. It should be noted that the historical accuracy of a copy of a
manuscript refers back to its original manuscript, rather than to whether the
events in that original really (i.e., empirically) happened. Even if a Gospel’s
original writer used historical nomenclature to describe an event in the
narrative as being a historical event does not mean that the event in the
narrative corresponds to a historical event outside of the narrative.
Historical nomenclature itself is a narrative device in service of the
narrative’s theme or point.
The writers would have known
themselves to be writing faith narratives rather than historical accounts because
the writers wrote primarily of religious belief-claims that go beyond history,
and thus the writing of historical accounts. The proof of the genre is in the
writing itself (i.e., what is written). Writers of religious belief-claims
rather than historical accounts would not have felt obliged to record only
historical events. In fact, the latter could be selectively appropriated and
even invented to suit the construction of the faith-narratives. A major
drawback of this device is that readers may assume that religious truth needs
historical verification to be valid. This fallacy is especially possible in an
empirical-fact, or scientific era. Therefore, cross-referencing manuscripts to
get as close as possible to the original manuscript can only get us so far if
our aim is to ascertain the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection outside of the
faith-narratives.
For example, the Gospels do
not have the same women discover Jesus’ tomb. To be sure, the Gospel writers
may not have had access to the same information. Even the accuracy of
historians’ accounts can suffer from this problem. Alternatively, in writing
faith narratives, the Gospel writers may not have been motivated to obtain the
information and verify it as historians are. Instead, the writers of the faith
narratives may have chosen characters to make theological or ecclesiastical
points.
Because women in ancient
Jewish culture (i.e., historically) were deemed to be unreliable witnesses—as a
religious studies scholar tells the journalist—the Gospel writers’ decision to
specify that the witnesses at the tomb are women has been taken as support for
the historical veracity not only for the witnesses, but also the resurrection
itself. “Why else, the religious scholar from Jerusalem asks the journalist,
would “all four Gospel writers record that it was women who discovered the
empty tomb?” But were the writers recording?
Historians do that, whereas the writers of faith narratives make religious
points to serve a religious theme, or faith.
Perhaps the Gospel writers,
who differed in their choice of which women are at the tomb, made their
respective choices to support different theological or ecclesiastical points.
There were, after all, factions in the early church. For example, Paul is said
to have differed from the Jerusalem church on whether converts must be circumcised.
Whether or not to include Mary Magdalene as a witness at the tomb (all four
Gospels do, but Paul does not) and whether she is first among the women has
ecclesiastical implications both concerning her status as an apostle and
whether women should hold leadership positions in the church. Considering Paul’s
opposition to this and the fact that he excludes women at the tomb, we cannot
conclude that he was oriented to providing a historical account; his agenda was
ecclesiastical. Similarly, rather than recording an account from historical
research, the Gospel writers could have been pushing back against Paul by
providing a basis on which women could have legitimate authority in the early
church. All this is in line with the
point that the Gospel writers were writing faith narratives rather than
historical accounts, and that Paul’s letters are not historical accounts, but,
rather, preachments.
In fact, given the clear difference
between the two genres, the writers of the faith narratives would have known that
their readers not assume that they were reading historical accounts. Yet many
evangelical Christians in the twentieth century disregarded both the authorial
intent and the early reader response—both being in the faith-narrative genre—in
assuming that the Gospel writers were operating as historians as well as men of
faith. A further assumption is that the faith role does not have any impact on
the historian role, so the Gospels can be taken literally.
In biblical hermeneutics
(i.e., methods of interpretation) until the twentieth century, figurative,
symbolic, analogical, and literal interpretations were generally understood as
equally valid and thus as useful—the objective being to use the one that fits
best for a given biblical passage in deriving religious truth. With science propelling technological advancement,
and thus dominating Western society by the mid-twentieth century, the literal
(i.e., “historical fact”) kind of interpretation enjoyed a presumptive place for
any biblical passage that could be taken as historical. This new predominance
would have been unknown both to the Gospel writers and to interpreters prior to
the twentieth century. That is, the Gospel writers could scarcely have
anticipated the overarching role for literal interpretation even when they were
using historical nomenclature to make religious points in their faith narratives.
Distant culturally and through
oceans of time from the writers’ world and literary context, we can unwittingly
reflect our culture in approaching the Gospels. Of course, we do not know how
the writers would react were they alive today because much of their intents,
especially for particular verses, are lost to us today. Instead, we supply our
own intents onto the page and presume that the authors had the same intents. In
our era, empirical facts are hegemonic (i.e., on top), so we naturally assume
that history plays a salient role in the construction of a faith narrative. We
even subordinate religious truth in a faith narrative to the extent that it is
not supported by empirical, historical facts. By implication, we are of little
faith in scarcely believing that religious truth has its own intrinsic value
and is therefore not in need of historical justification and sanctification.
Perhaps we cannot help
remaking an ancient religion in our own societal image. Perhaps religious
ideology bends space and time to reflect what is acceptable to us. The medium
of film, being in our era rather than that of the founding of an ancient religion,
can operate as a facilitator. Helped by the suspension of disbelief, we believe
that we are “in” Jesus’ world, and thus closer to his story and its religious
meaning. What we see of ancient Judaea on the screen only reflects what the
filmmakers construct, based on the faith narratives and what historians have
uncovered of that locale back then. Film viewers are not in Judaea as it was. They are not in the garden and at the
crucifixion. Yet the viewers naturally feel that they have never been closer to
them. Furthermore, the illusion and related suspension of disbelief that the
medium of film has can lead the viewers to assume the historicity as factual
rather than conjectured. For example, seeing the dramatic coming of dark clouds
as Jesus dies on a cross can result in a false sense of historical accuracy as
in, so that’s what it was really like.
Future Good Fridays that are sunny may not even feel like Good Fridays.
Additionally, what conjecture that
film can give us of the story world as historical too combines with the
religious interpretation or ideology (i.e., a set of aligned interpretations)
driving the film to present the narrative’s point, or theme. This can uplift
the faithful or give them reason to subject their faith to critique. These are
not necessarily mutually exclusive. A faith pruned of bad assumptions can
become a healthier mature tree. What need of childish things does an adult
faith have? A film can aid in this process.
I contend that The Case for Christ falls short because
the pruning tools provided are not strong enough. The character arc of Lee, the
journalist—that is, his transformation or inner journey over the course of the
film narrative—goes from an atheist stance to an affirmation of evangelical
Christianity. In spite of this protagonist having a critical stance toward
religion (and Christianity) through most of the story, he suddenly decides that
the resurrection was indeed a historical event. This can be taken as the
filmmakers’ desired stance, at least as far as the movie goes. I have
emphasized the critique of this stance precisely because the film does not give
the arguments enough credit. In other words, the film makes a “straw man”
argument against the resurrection being a historical event. The case against Christ is too easily pushed
aside by the case for Christ. So I lean
here in the other direction, not because I personally take the anti-historical-event
side, but, rather, because moviemakers and viewers alike would benefit by
understanding that the dialogue on Christianity could have been better written,
with better arguments on the skeptic’s side, so that the viewers, whether
atheist or theist, could have a better grasp of the difficulties involved in
using faith narratives to make historical claims.
For Christian viewers, a more
realistic stance could prompt a realization that religious meaning or truth is
inherently or intrinsically of great value. For example, the spiritual value of
turning the other cheek, or, even better, helping people who have insulted or
even attacked you does not depend on historical facts. In other words, such
value need not stand on the stilts of history. In fact, religious truth
transcends history. The means that Jesus teaches, such as turning the other
cheek or loving enemies, are so foreign to human nature and history that the
source of the value can be viewed as being beyond human nature and history, and
thus divine. If the medium of film can facilitate a recognition of the sui generis (i.e., unique) nature of
religious value (of religious truth or meaning) as distinct from and
independent of historical facts, the medium is indeed more valuable than
perhaps we realize in handling deep meaning.
[1] Paul Hopper, “A Narrative Anomaly in
Josephus: Jewish Antiquities xviii: 63, In Linguistics
and Literary Studies, Monika Fludernik and Daniel Jacob, Eds. (Walter de
Gruyter, 2014), pp. 147-170.
[2]
Ibid.
[3]
The Testimonium Flavianum, in Flavius Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 18.3.3, section 63, translated by Louis Feldman
(The Loeb Classical Library).
[4] On
this distinction in Judaism, see Von Rad’s two-volume History of Israel.
[5] Paul
Hopper, “A Narrative Anomaly in Josephus.
