3 Psychology and the historical Jesus

Despite a myriad of explorations in fiction and film, and its central importance in much Christian popular piety and theological reflection,^[1] the psychology of the historical Jesus has not been something that has attracted serious interest from New Testament scholars. Indeed, most do not consider it a legitimate area of study. Such is the strength of feeling on this issue, that those who do venture into this field find themselves and their work consigned to the periphery of scholarly debate and their interest treated as unhistorical and speculative. It is no surprise, for example, that the fullest discussion of the subject in recent decades appeared in the journal Pastoral Psychology (2002), not in a journal for the study of the New Testament. As we shall see, this failure is not quite what it appears to be. For all their protestations, most scholars of the historical Jesus do in fact address psychological questions of a kind, although they have a long way to go before they begin to produce works that are, psychologically speaking, very illuminating or defensible.

Despite the paucity of writing in this area, some things can be said about the psychology of the historical Jesus. But before we suggest what these might be, it is important that we look at why there has been such a reluctance to undertake this in a formal way. This is a particularly perplexing state of affairs given that (1) Albert Schweitzer, whose publications have done so much to shape the history and preoccupations of scholars examining the historical Jesus, dedicated a book directly to this subject as long ago as 1913;^[2] (2) the exponential growth in recent years in the number of publications by scholars of the New Testament that claim to apply social sciences to its interpretation;^[3] and (3) the myriad of confident reconstructions of the life of the historical Jesus that have appeared since the beginning of the so-called “Third Quest” in the mid-1980s.^[4] All these factors indicate that the situation should have been very different.

The reason for the absence of studies of the psychology of Jesus is more or less self-evident to most New Testament scholars. For the overwhelming majority, psychology and biblical studies just do not mix. For example, David Horrell’s collection of essays on social-scientific approaches to the New Testament contains virtually nothing from a psychological perspective.^[5] As Gerd Theissen has observed, “the rejection of any combination of psychology and exegesis is often presented with … disarming obviousness.”^[6] However, if we look more closely at the grounds for this common assumption, it becomes clear that objections are rather weak and the actual practices and concerns of a number of scholars who examine the historical Jesus are not as distinct from those of psychology as are often thought.

For many, the problems of using psychology to examine the historical Jesus are of a general kind that could equally be applicable to the study of the psychology of any historical figure. N. T. Wright’s comments are typical of many:

Such attempts are made from time to time, but have not carried much conviction. After all, as pastors, psychiatrists and psychotherapists know, it is hard enough to understand the inner workings of someone’s psyche (even supposing we could define such a thing with any precision) when they share one’s own culture and language and when they co-operate with the process and answer one’s questions. How much harder when none of these things are the case.^[7]

Few raising such objections are aware that the strengths and weaknesses of psychohistory have been discussed for some decades, at least since Eric Erikson’s famous study of Luther was published in the 1950s.^[8] Although psychohistory may have fallen out of favour amongst many English-speaking historians,^[9] it does not mean that such an approach is self-evidently unreasonable, as Wright and others assume.^[10] At the very least scholars such as Wright would benefit from familiarising themselves with current debates around psychohistorical analysis^[11] so that their criticisms are somewhat more informed.

Some object to the psychological study of the historical Jesus on grounds that are more specific to the figure of Jesus. For a number there is a theological objection (whether stated or not) that stems from the fear that somehow such a psychological approach will relativise the theological claims of either the text of the Bible or the figure of Jesus himself, through appeal to factors and processes that are all too human.^[12] Indeed, such an enquiry might reveal “imperfection, inadequacy, and weakness”.^[13] Objections of this kind are not sustainable not least because, if the basis upon which they are made is taken seriously, any study of the historical Jesus, not just those that are concerned with psychological questions, would be impossible. However, the most common complaint specific to the study of the psychology of the historical Jesus is that the sources of our knowledge of Jesus cannot bear the weight of psychological scrutiny. The processes by which the New Testament came to be have led most to doubt the ability of even the earliest records of Jesus to give access to the man himself.^[14] Although it is now customary for scholars of the historical Jesus to claim certain isolated “facts” about the life of Jesus can be determined with a reasonable level of certainty through the application of generally agreed historical criteria (for example, Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist or Jesus’ death on a Roman cross), these are not of the kind that can be subject to psychological scrutiny without a scholar being accused of engaging in an indefensible level of speculation.^[15]

Yet, despite their protestations, most New Testament scholars do have something to say about the psychology of the historical Jesus, even if they do not use the language of psychology in articulating it.^[16] They often operate with “common-sense” assumptions about “human nature” that play a crucial part in various aspects of their reconstructions, which often, incidentally, give them a false confidence in their speculations.^[17] There is one particular preoccupation of Jesus scholarship on which most New Testament scholars have something to say and in which we can see them most obviously engaging in amateur psychology of a kind: they have been happy to speculate, at least to a certain degree, about the motivations and objectives of the historical Jesus, in order to say something, however limited, about his self-understanding.^[18] Indeed, Wright criticises those who try to study the psychology of the historical Jesus in the context of his own attempt to justify his extremely bold speculations about Jesus’ awareness that he was embodying God’s return to Zion.^[19] To date, the question of Jesus’ self-understanding often consists of rather arid discussions over whether the historical Jesus could have affirmed a variety of apparently conflicting identities for himself or what incident his life might be considered a “turning point” in his self-awareness. The speculations are rather impoverished by this allergy to psychology, and as for all the talk of self-understanding, there has been little reflection on what exactly constitutes the understanding of selfhood within the context of Jesus’ day.

Some, of course, have ventured to say rather more about the psychology of Jesus, despite the reservations of their colleagues.^[20] But, for various reasons, work in this area has yet to achieve a great deal. Much time, for example, has been expended debating whether it is reasonable to classify the historical Jesus as suffering from a mental illness of some kind (the focus, for example, of Albert Schweitzer’s contribution). This is a legitimate area to examine; after all it seems likely that the historical Jesus was thought to be mad by some of his contemporaries, including his own family.^[21] A number also thought him possessed, a designation that indicated that they believed that he exhibited behavioural abnormalities.^[22] Indeed, John’s gospel even records a tradition that Jesus was thought to be suicidal^[23] (although this was not thought to necessarily be an indication of mental illness in this period). And, as I have argued elsewhere,^[24] I think it is reasonable to interpret Jesus’ treatment by the Romans, so reminiscent of that experienced by his “insane” near contemporaries Carabas^[25] and Jesus ben Ananias,^[26] as providing sufficient grounds for concluding that he was ridiculed and put to death by those who believed him to be out of his senses. But although it seems reasonable to pursue this question, much of the serious work on Jesus’ mental health was undertaken early in the twentieth century, and our understanding of mental illness has moved on considerably since then, rendering its results of little value. For example, until relatively recently there seems to have been little awareness that “madness” as a label is often deployed as an attempt to enforce cultural notions of normality. Although, socially speaking, it is reasonable that some of Jesus’ contemporaries could well have interpreted his actions and teachings as “mad” because they seem to have been at variance with many of their assumptions and practices (albeit still within the broad possibilities of first-century Judaism), attempts to engage in a retrospective diagnosis of an organic mental disorder seem peculiarly naïve and crude.

Not much work has been undertaken since this flurry of activity nearly a century ago, despite the enormous shift in our thinking about the nature of psychology. However, the contributions of two scholars stand out, notably those of John W. Miller and Donald Capps. Although their impact on mainstream biblical studies has been negligible, it is instructive to briefly examine how they have tried to tackle the question of the psychology of the historical Jesus before making a few suggestions of my own.

Of the two, Miller’s seems to be the more critically astute work, produced by someone who has a significant reputation within the field of biblical studies. He has argued that the bare outline of Jesus’ life, discernible through the application of conventional historical-critical method, can give us sufficient data to allow us to engage in some kind of psychological scrutiny of the man.^[27] Indeed, such information cries out for psychological analysis — particularly of a developmental kind. The outline of Jesus’ life before the beginning of his ministry is summarised by Miller in the following way:

[The gospels] inform us that he was born into a certain kind of family and place and for many years worked at a certain occupation, and that it was not until he was “about thirty” that he left home for the Jordan, where he was baptized by a certain type of man and then experienced certain “temptations” — and that not even then did he launch his own unique mission, but only after the one who had him baptized was arrested.^[28]

Miller brings a number of approaches to bear in examining this outline, but perhaps the most striking is his use of Daniel Levinson’s The Seasons of a Man’s Life,^[29] in which it is argued that there is a definite developmental pattern of specific, age-linked phases that affect the lives of all men, shaping behaviour and governing emotional states and attitudes. For Miller, the age at which Jesus began his ministry (recorded in Luke to be “about thirty”)^[30] is a crucial period of crisis and transformation for men in general, a period of generative and vocational urgency that explains much about the motivation and form, if not the content, of Jesus’ ministry (particularly when other biographical factors are taken into account, such as the loss of his father and his close association with his “mentor” John the Baptist).

Capps provides a rather more complex and speculative attempt at psychohistory, one which is rather less reticent about applying diagnostic labels to the historical Jesus.^[31] In particular, he emphasises the formative significance of Jesus’ early experience as a fatherless son with a devalued mother. For Capps, this not only caused Jesus to develop into a melancholic depressive with a diffused identity but also drove him to resolve his conflict in one consummate, symbolic action in the temple, in which he both purified his mother and affirmed God as his father.

Both these studies, Capps’ more so than Miller’s, can be criticised at the level of exegetical detail and their theoretical assumptions could strike many as rather problematic. For example, given the significant difference between life expectancy in the Roman empire^[32] and that today, it seems odd for Miller to argue for the helpfulness of Levinson’s insights about the importance of the age-thirty transition (which are derived from the study of contemporary North Americans) for understanding Jesus. However, the real difficulty with these accounts of the psychology of the historical Jesus lies in the amount that they rely upon the narrative outline of Jesus’ life as presented in the canonical gospels. Historically speaking, it is customary to be extremely suspicious of this.^[33] For example, even an event as redolent with potential for making sense of the psychology Jesus as the incident in the temple, something that Capps believes resolved Jesus’ conflicted identity, is hard to place in the chronology of Jesus’ life with any certainty. Did it, for example, occur at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry (as recorded in the Gospel of John)^[34] or at the end (as recorded in the Synoptic Gospels)?^[35] Indeed, we should keep in mind the sobering remarks made by Henry Cadbury many years ago, which are as relevant now:

Probably much that is commonly said about the general purpose of Jesus’ life and the specific place in that purpose of detailed incidents is modern superimposition upon a nearly patternless life and upon nearly patternless records of it.^[36]

Even if it does prove possible to distinguish a plausible pattern in the life of Jesus we should also be aware of the likelihood that what has been discovered is not something that can allow us to explore the psychological development of Jesus’ self-understanding. It may, for example, only tell us something about the historical Jesus’ strategy of progressive self-disclosure.^[37]

So, to date, the study of the psychology of the historical Jesus remains in its infancy, still a marginal and problematic undertaking, with little work of value yet done. But, nonetheless, there are some things that can be said. Although these are of a rather general kind, and rather limited in scope, they may provide the basis for further, more fruitful work. Even those who have been dismissive of psychological scrutiny of the historical Jesus, such as Günther Bornkamm who rejected it as “regressive” and “doomed to failure”,^[38] have felt that critical examination of the sources can yield some things about Jesus’ “personality”, an area in which we can make some useful headway. We can know the kind of person the historical Jesus was.

My optimism in this area should come as no surprise. The personality of Jesus left a clear impression on the earliest believers, so much so that it became a basis for some of their ethical thinking and practice. Paul, for example, could entreat the Corinthians “by the meekness and gentleness of Christ”^[39] — and assume that the recipients of his letter knew that Jesus was indeed “meek” and “gentle” (whatever those terms might mean). In particular, the virtues that Jesus’ exhibited in the face of death, of both forbearance and submission to God, and his refusal to return violence with violence, seem to have been recurring motifs in the pictures of Jesus that emerge from these traditions and tell us something about the enduring impression his personality made on his followers:

Each of us must please our neighbour for the good purpose of building up the neighbour. For Christ did not please himself; but as it is written, “The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.” (Rom 15.2–3)

For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving an example, so that you should follow in his steps. “He committed no sin and no deceit was found in his mouth.” When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly. (1 Pet 2.21–3)

In saying that we can know about the “personality” of Jesus, I am not arguing that we should make anything much of the direct descriptions of Jesus’ emotions in our sources, even though these can reveal such things as Jesus’ anger, compassion or love.^[40] The textual traditions behind such details seem too unreliable,^[41] and it is frankly too hard for a modern reader to make any real sense of what is actually being described. For example, there is little evidence of early Christian documents being at all concerned with “introspection”, even when they talk about states that seem to have an internal origin (such as compassion) there is no idea of subjective and reflective introspection inherent in the emotion. As Klaus Berger puts it, there is, in the understanding of emotions in the New Testament, a lack of the “subjective middle” between reason and ecstasy.^[42]

Rather, we are on more solid ground if we try to determine what kind of personality is implied in the general praxis and preaching of the historical Jesus, drawing our conclusions from data that is more historically defensible. For example, even if critics disagree over the authenticity of particular parables, it is a striking feature of our sources that the teaching form associated with the historical Jesus is one that is open-ended and essentially metaphorical in character. Cannot we deduce something about the character of Jesus from this? What kind of person could choose such a means of conveying their ideas? Just how authoritarian, for example, could the historical Jesus have been? Similarly, Jesus seems to have been thought of by his contemporaries as a successful healer and exorcist of some kind (even if the reasons for his success were a matter of contention),^[43] and Jesus seems to have shared such an estimation of himself.^[44] Indeed, as John P. Meier notes, “Put dramatically, but with not too much exaggeration: if the miracle tradition from Jesus’ public ministry were to be rejected in toto as unhistorical, so should every other Gospel tradition about him.”^[45] The actual practice of healing seems to have been more visceral than is often assumed and may have involved some kind of sympathetic aspect to it, in which Jesus took on the illnesses which he cured.^[46] Cannot we infer from this something about his character? Similarly, it seems that Jesus’ ministry was characterised by what John Dominic Crossan has termed “open commensality”, a radical form of social praxis that disturbed social expectations and conventions that Jesus persisted with despite attracting ridicule.^[47] Surely such a practice must allow us to infer something about his psychology? Likewise, surely we can deduce something from the fact that Jesus seems to have believed that his followers should value him and his mission above their families and even their own lives?^[48] Cannot we legitimately assume something from the intensely eschatological character of his preaching? Of course, the terminology we use to describe Jesus’ personality is not self-evident, and we will need to pay close attention to cross-cultural taxonomies of personality developed elsewhere to produce anything useful from such a line of enquiry,^[49] but I believe it is evident, from the myriad of data that we have just touched upon, that we can say something.

So, after a rather extended and pessimistic description of the state of scholarship on the question of the psychology of the historical Jesus, I have tried to finish on a positive, if rather undeveloped note. Others I am sure can think of more productive areas to examine. For example, despite the problems with Miller and Capps, it seems legitimate to try saying something developmental about Jesus’ psychology — after all, the early Christians believed that “he learned obedience through what he suffered”.^[50] If more New Testament scholars could be encouraged to recognise that they are already, to some extent, engaged in psychological analysis of the historical Jesus, and that they are already, as a matter of course, examining data of real potential psychological significance, much could be gained. The present state of affairs has gone on too long.