Chapter 107 of 404

Is Theological Tendenz Compatible with “True” History?

Modern historians write from various perspectives, just as ancient ones did, as interpreters in postmodern times in particular emphasize.¹⁹³ (Dunn points to the varying estimates of Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher today as examples.) ¹⁹⁴ No historian can escape subjective bias; but holding a perspective concerning events does not make the information about the events bad history, even if it may bias what information gets presented and preserved.¹⁹⁵ Similarly, even news outlets in different countries (and sometimes in the same country) select and “spin” news in different ways, but most (the vast majority of free media) are responsible enough to use genuine data.¹⁹⁶ We may evaluate the value of authors’ perspectives (e.g., theodicy for the gods; capitalism; globalism) from our own perspectives (e.g., Enlightenment rationalism; Marxism; or nationalism). Recognizing writers’ perspectives does not, however, require us to assume that they falsified their data. Another writer may select and emphasize the data differently without disagreeing in the main with the reliability of the specific data presented.

The Gospel writers’ agendas are less often moralistic, and far less often nationalistic, than was frequent among their contemporaries, but no less often (and in fact generally more often) theological (in the stricter sense). At the same time, ancient historians and biographers normally communicated these agendas by recounting stories that they believed to be true.¹⁹⁷ As the Jewish scholar Geza Vermes points out, “a theological interest is no more incompatible with a concern for history than is a political or philosophical conviction,” and we can allow for these interests in interpretation.¹⁹⁸

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