What Did Jesus Know?

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What did Jesus know? My answer to that question, as both a Christian and a scholar, has changed over the course of a lifetime.

In the understanding of Christianity I received in childhood, the answer was obvious: Jesus was divine, God incarnate in human form. I therefore took it for granted that Jesus (like God) was omniscient and would have known everything. I assumed that if he had been asked, “What’s the theory of relativity?” he would have said, “E=mc².”

But as a young graduate student studying theology and Jesus scholarship, that answer became unacceptable. Ascribing omniscience to Jesus of Nazareth, I realized, crosses the boundary into docetism, a common and yet unorthodox Christian position. Docetism says, in effect, “Though Jesus looked like a human being, deep down inside he was really God—and that’s why he had superhuman knowledge and power.” But if Jesus had a divine mind and divine powers, then he essentially ceases to be human, and his humanity has been reduced to an outer shell.

Furthermore, I saw that taking Jesus’ full humanity seriously has an immediate implication. Namely, whatever Jesus knew, he learned from his experience in a comprehensive sense—his socialization, his observation of the world, his relationships, his religion. In short, whatever he knew, he came to know in the same ways that we all do.

So, what did Jesus know? In general, he would have known whatever a bright perceptive first-century C.E. Galilean Jewish peasant male living in a somewhat cosmopolitan environment would have known. He would have known Jewish traditions, and he would have been at least slightly familiar with Hellenistic ways. He probably spoke some Greek, in addition to Aramaic, though how fluently is hard to assess.¹ He would have shared many common beliefs of antiquity, probably including the one that the world is flat.

Recently, scholars have puzzled about whether he was literate or non-literate. The question is not whether Jesus could read. He almost certainly had what might be called “tradesman’s literacy,” including the ability to read and write simple contracts. Rather, the question is whether he had “scribal literacy”: the ability to find and read a specific passage in a biblical scroll. To be sure, the Gospels portray him as being able to do so. For example, in Luke’s version of Jesus’ inaugural address in the synagogue in Nazareth (Luke 4:16ff.), Jesus reads a passage from the scroll of Isaiah. Texts in which Jesus quotes Scripture also presume scribal literacy on his part. The question is whether these texts reflect the practice of the historical Jesus, or whether they are products of early Christian scribes seeking to ground Jesus’ mission in the Hebrew Bible. Would Jesus as a peasant have had access to and time for the education required to learn that? And would he have had regular access to scarce, expensive scrolls?² It is difficult to know.^a

Did he know he was “the Son of God?” Did he know he was “the messiah” or “the light of the world?” or “the Word made flesh”? As a child, I thought, “Of course Jesus knew all of those things about himself.” But now, in common with much of this century’s scholarship, my answer is, “Probably not.” According to our earliest sources, he did not claim for himself any of the exalted titles ascribed to him. And if he said nothing about his exalted status, what would be our justification for saying that he nevertheless thought of himself in such terms?³

Yet, though historical scholarship generates uncertainties about what Jesus knew and didn’t know, it has also led me to a fundamental conviction about something that Jesus did know. Namely, I am convinced that Jesus knew God.⁴

I didn’t learn this in graduate school. I can’t recall that it was talked about. Moreover, I did not yet have a conceptual framework within which to make sense of a claim that somebody could know God. Because I thought of God as “wholly transcendent,” it made sense to speak of “believing” in God or “having faith” in 048God, and maybe even knowing things about God. But knowing God? How could one know God? It took over a decade to develop a conceptual framework within which such a claim makes sense. The more general point is that metaphysical or ontological frameworks affect what we are able seriously to entertain as possible.

Now, though I am a Christian, I do not make this claim based on Christian belief or devotion, but as a historian and student of religion. To explain, I see Jesus as one of those figures in human history for whom God or “the sacred” is an element of experience, not just an article of belief. Many people have one or two such experiences in their lives.⁵ But for a few, such experiences are vivid and frequent, and profoundly shape their ways of seeing and being. Among them are the pre-eminent figures of the world’s religions: Moses, Lao Tzu, the Buddha, Jesus and Mohammed, along with other prophets, saints and “holy persons” in native traditions around the world.

Such people know God. Once one realizes that there really are people like this, it seems obvious that Jesus was one of them. He seems to have been an extraordinary exemplar of the type. Moreover, it seems to me that Jesus’ experience of God was the foundation of everything else he was: the source of his wisdom teaching, his gifts as a healer, his passion as a social prophet and his courage, charisma and love.⁶

A few scholars have emphasized Jesus’ experience of the sacred. But most of my colleagues in the discipline have not made it central. I do not know why.

So, when I was a child, I thought Jesus was God, and knew everything. When I was a little older, I thought Jesus was the Son of God and, of course, knew that and taught that. Now, I don’t think Jesus knew he was divine, or that he was the Son of God; that is, I strongly doubt that Jesus thought of himself that way. But I am persuaded that he knew God. And that makes all the difference.

After almost four years as a New Testament columnist for BR, this is my final column. I thank Hershel Shanks for giving me this enjoyable task, and I thank the many readers who thought it worthwhile to interact with the viewpoints I have expressed. I have valued the dialogue.

What did Jesus know? My answer to that question, as both a Christian and a scholar, has changed over the course of a lifetime. In the understanding of Christianity I received in childhood, the answer was obvious: Jesus was divine, God incarnate in human form. I therefore took it for granted that Jesus (like God) was omniscient and would have known everything. I assumed that if he had been asked, “What’s the theory of relativity?” he would have said, “E=mc2.” But as a young graduate student studying theology and Jesus scholarship, that answer became unacceptable. Ascribing omniscience to Jesus […]