Journal: Tyndale Bulletin
Volume: TYNBUL 72:1 (NA 2021)
Article: The Metaphysics Of Historical Jesus Research An Argument For Increasing The Plurality Of Metaphysical Frameworks Within Historical Jesus Research
Author: Jonathan Rowlands

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The Metaphysics Of Historical Jesus Research An Argument For Increasing The Plurality Of Metaphysical Frameworks Within Historical Jesus Research1

Jonathan Rowlands

St Mellitus College, East Midlands, UK
[email protected]

Dissertation Summary

In this thesis I examine the metaphysical presuppositions that influence modern academic historical Jesus research. I enquire on a fundamental level how one accrues historical knowledge and how historians make judgements regarding the evidence before them. My argument is thus: modern academic historical research operates within a ‘secular’ metaphysical framework, where I define secularism in terms of the decline of the authority of religious perspectives to contribute to public life (chapter 5). It is substantiated by examining the role of worldviews within historiographical decision making in general (chapter 4) and historical Jesus research in particular (chapters 6 and 7).

I do not take issue with secularism itself, or its suitability as an historiographical framework. Instead, I argue secular reasoning is not a metaphysically neutral system of thought, and any discipline displaying a totalising adherence to secular metaphysics at the expense of other frameworks will be constrained by what is possible within a secular metaphysics. More than anything, I seek not to be unduly negative of scholars preceding me. I hope to demonstrate the importance of a lightly held conception of academic acceptability within historical Jesus research; I claim the discipline benefits when other perspectives are added to it, not that

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any perspectives ought to be subtracted from it. I advocate for the construction of other metaphysical frameworks within which historical-critical methods may be developed, including (but not limited to) a Christian metaphysical framework that is neither mastered by other frameworks nor seeks to master them.

Following an introduction, wherein I outline the state of the question and my contribution to it, my thesis is divided into two parts. In the first part (chapters 2 to 5) I lay a technical foundation regarding the concept of worldviews and the characteristics of secular scholarship. In section two I apply this to the quest for the historical Jesus (chapters 6 to 7) before offering some concluding remarks in chapter 8.

In chapter 2, ‘Defining Metaphysics’, I define two terms fundamental to my argument: ‘metaphysics’ and ‘worldview’. I begin with metaphysics, which is defined practically by examining five focal points of metaphysical philosophy and key debates therein. They are: 1) ontology, 2)...