James Dunn has written a little book entitled A New Perspective on Jesus, What the Quest of the Historical Jesus Missed (Acadia Studies in Bible and Theology, Baker Academic, 2005). The book is a much smaller version of his larger work Jesus Remembered (Christianity in the Making, vol. 1). In the book Dunn points out the flaws in the Quest for the Historical Jesus. This is nothing new, many have written on the subject. But Dunn not only points out the problems, he also provides a "new perspective" for the study of gospel texts that is sane and makes sense, two things often missing in this area.

Those who are familiar with gospel research know that the main question that scholars have asked about the gospels for the last two centuries is the question of whether the Jesus that we read about in the gospels is the same Jesus who actually lived and walked on the earth 2000 years ago. "Does the Jesus of history equal the Christ of faith?" is a question that has received so much attention that one is utterly bewildered by the amount of material on the subject. The answer to this question by much of "Quest" scholarship has been a resounding "no".

Dunn presents three major criticisms of "Quest" scholars. The first is that they assumed that the faith of Jesus' followers was a hindrance that obscured an accurate picture of him. This criticism could not be truer. The real Jesus, it is said, is buried under layers of faith-tradition, a faith that made him a savior when in reality he said or did nothing to imply this as his mission. The "savior-Jesus" was created post-Easter by the faith of his earliest followers. The real historical Jesus is hidden to us and can only be found by stripping away those elements in the text that betray the faith of his followers. When this is done the Jesus of the gospel accounts typically gets well-deserved "demotion" (note #6 of Robert Funk's "Twenty-One Thesis", in The Fourth R, Vol. 11,4 July/August 1998). Dunn counters that Jesus made a faith impact on his followers from the very beginning, not just after the Resurrection; attempting to strip that away in order to find the real Jesus is not only futile, but removes the very historical foundation of the gospel tradition.

The second criticism is that, although acknowledging that the traditions about Jesus were transmitted orally, the "Quest" scholars did not take into consideration just how much the oral character of the tradition shaped and at the same time preserved it. Many scholars have seen the oral transmission of the Jesus tradition as a detriment that guaranteed its corruption. Dunn seems to say that the stories of Jesus were passed in community and preserved in much the same way as a modern worship choruses. There are those who preserve the integrity of the song but there is also fluidity to each performance.

Finally, Dunn is very critical of the way in which scholars have accepted as authentic only those parts of the tradition where Jesus is unique or distinctive from his own world. The historical Jesus is the non-Jewish and non-Christian Jesus; the rest is embellishment. I liken this to using a nuclear weapon to get rid of the ants in your house. It will certainly work but little of the house is left! It's with the little bit left over that many have reconstructed an "historical" Jesus who, although a really great guy, most often looks very much like the ideology of the scholar who created him. Dunn turns the so-called criterion of dissimilarity on its head. It's not in the "distinctive Jesus" that we find the authentic tradition so much as the "characteristic Jesus." The gospels preserve those elements of Jesus' characteristic acts and words. These made a lasting impression on his followers and were preserved in their memory of him.

The book is worth reading for anyone who is interested in Gospel research. It would also be helpful to those in a situation where they find the reliability of the gospels being questioned. Although different, I liken it to reading Birger Gerhardsson's, The Reliability of the Gospel Tradition (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2001).