event and interpretation in the gospel

Events do not carry within themselves their own interpretation; an interpretation is produced by human beings in their attempt to fit their experience of the events into their broader understanding of reality. However, the nature of events and the particular historical and social context within which they occur, provide both the impetus to interpret the events as significant as well as constraints on what may be considered an appropriate interpretation of the event. This is because these elements must themselves be part of the coherent interpretation—the explanatory narrative—of the event.

This means that there were not all that many options available to the immediate followers of Jesus for understanding their experiences of personally interacting with the crucified Jesus a few days after his death. These experiences, by virtue of their nature and circumstances, compelled the first followers of Jesus to discern some larger significance in these and other recent events. That Jesus had been a first century Galilean Jew, acclaimed as a prophet and even Messiah; that he had been crucified in Jerusalem at Passover as a treasonous brigand at the hands of the Romans, following conflicts with the Jewish religious elite; that he had been buried in a tomb—these factors and more provided constraints on how the immediate followers of Jesus would interpret their post-crucifixion experiences of a living Jesus. These constraints made several general interpretations virtually inevitable for these early followers of Jesus: some sort of “bodily” resurrection of Jesus; some sort of divine vindication of Jesus as prophet and Messiah; conversely, some sort of divine subversion of the values of Roman society and the Jewish elite; some sort of divine significance for Jesus’ otherwise shameful crucifixion; and so on. Thus, for those holding to the testimony of the first followers of Jesus regarding their witness of the living crucified Jesus, there was an unavoidable general unity of interpretation compelled by and constrained by the witnessed events within their context: "that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures... and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures" (1 Cor 15:3-4; cf. v. 11).

Certainly, other explanations could be offered, and indeed, from early on many other stories were told to explain these events. The standard Roman explanation was undoubtedly that Jesus was crucified to preserve a fragile Roman peace in Judea, and that any subsequent events were bothersome consequences of dealing with a persistently superstitious Jewish sect. The Jewish elite likely held that Jesus was a troublemaker who was attempting to lead Israel astray, and that they were therefore justified in pressuring the Roman authorities for his crucifixion. Interestingly, these stories (especially the Roman one) are similar to the stories historians have most often produced in critically reconstructing the death of Jesus. But these interpretations could not have been generated by the immediate followers of Jesus; they were too close to the events, too influenced by their personal experiences, too intimately acquainted with Jesus of Nazareth and his life context, to offer such explanations.

Event and interpretation were thus bound up together with one another from the very first. And so, one cannot strip away the interpretation and get back to the event; the event itself is past, and the only access we have to the event is through the interpretation—the explanatory narrative—provided by the first Christians. We do not even have any other early interpretations at hand; no “official” first century Roman or Jewish explanations of Jesus’ death have survived. And the explanatory narrative offered by the earliest followers of Jesus is not the language of historiography, providing a critical reconstruction to explain a body of presuppositionally and methodologically approved historical data. Nor is it the language of logic, providing a rational chain or cluster of arguments based upon established premises. No, this is the language of testimony, the story of experiential witness that asks for faith. This is not to say that such testimony is beyond the reach of historical investigation or logical consistency. Rather, it is to say that such testimony cannot be reduced to history or logic. The gospel—as event and interpretation—is a call to faith: faith in the messenger, faith in the message, faith in the One to whom the message points.