[February 2002 journal entry]
Proposition: The first leaders of Christianity retained interest in the historical ‘Jesus’ as the backdrop to the ‘from above’ (or ‘looking back’) angle created by the resurrection narratives and by the subsequent immediately present guidance from ‘God’ they claimed. To use Karl Barth’s categories, geschichte replaced historie. ‘From below’ perspectives were quickly left without representation in what eventually became the official record of the first years after the death of ‘Jesus’. Variations – historical as well as theological -- within the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm, to be approved, had to build off this ‘from above’ methodology. My ‘non-religious’ approach (1) gives priority to historie over geschichte claims and interpretations, (2) considers historie as building material, (3) has reservations about geschichte claims/interpretations both as credible language and as a credible methodological starting point.
