Exorcisms

Now let us return to our problem of historical criteria (such as discontinuity or coherence) becoming less relevant with the standardization of the form of a story (as detected by form criticism). This can be explained through an example taken from Jesus’ exorcisms. The criterion of discontinuity can verify the historicity of Jesus’ exorcisms by His own authority – in general, because this is a clean break from second-Temple Judaism where exorcisms would have been worked through the authority (power) of God. This unique approach to exorcism by Jesus enjoys considerable multiple attestation which shows that it was very probably common practice for the historical Jesus. Good as this may be for establishing the historicity of Jesus’ exorcisms by His own authority – in general; it tends to make the criterion much less effective for establishing the historicity of particular narratives, because once a particular characteristic becomes part of the standard form of a story, the historian can no longer tell whether it was included in the tradition behind the Gospel story because it really occurred or because it was part of the standard form. This means that ascertaining the historicity of a particular story must take a more circumlocutious path then ascertaining the historicity of Jesus’ exorcisms, healings, or raisings from the dead in general.

How might historians approach this more difficult task? It may be done in two steps. First, they take a standard miracle story (say, an exorcism story), and then peel back the redactions (the Evangelists’ favorite themes and teaching concerns) that may have been added by the Evangelists. Secondly, they attempt to move from the standard form of the story through the various layers of oral tradition to get to the primitive core story. Without going through the enormous nuance of this second step (which John P. Meier does extensively), I will give a brief explanation of five techniques for identifying historicity after literary redactions have been removed.

Technique #1 - Identification of nonstandard parts of a story. Stories which have several parts not falling within the standard form of, say, exorcism stories, reveal a very complex and lively development within oral tradition which probably have a primitive origin. This is not to say that stories which fall strictly within the standard form are not historical (recall the fallacy of negating the antecedent given above). However, the absence of nonstandard elements makes their development more difficult to trace, and therefore makes them less historically verifiable. Thus, we may generalize by saying that longer, detailed stories which include multiple elements falling outside of the standard form are more historically verifiable than ones that strictly follow the standard form.

Technique #2 - Unusual facts in material falling outside the standard form. In some narratives with extensive materials falling outside the standard form, there are unusual or unique facts that would not have ordinarily been included in a miracle story and serve no redactional purpose (i.e., they are not the favorite theme of an Evangelist, and do not serve a catechetical need or teaching need that might have added to the story). These unusual or unique facts would seem to require some personal connection of witnesses to the actual occurrence – for example, four friends of a paralyzed man going up to the roof of a building in which Jesus is preaching, carving a hole in the roof and lowering the paralyzed man down (Mark 2:1-12 parr.). This long detail does not seem as if it would have been added by any re-crafter of an oral tradition or by any literary redactor because it serves no apologetical, catechetical, or teaching purpose. Since it also requires the personal connection of a witness to remember it, there is some likelihood that it goes back to an historical occurrence.

Technique #3 - Historical details that are irrelevant to the standard form. These would include names of people and/or names of towns, for example, the town of Nain which is quite small and would have absolutely no pedagogical or catechetical purpose for the authors of traditions or the Evangelists. Why include it? Because it was probably attached to the original story. Again, names like Lazarus or Mary Magdalene have no pedagogical or catechetical purpose, and would seem to be relevant only if they were part of an original story.

Technique #4 - Semitisms. When Aramaic words (such as “talitha koum”) appear in a Gospel text, we assume that their authors did not gratuitously introduce them into stories which were already translated into Greek. Rather, they represent an earlier stage of the tradition going back to its Palestinian origins. The same holds true for Semitic forms of speech which can be detected underneath Greek translations. Semitic substrata are revealed by very awkward Greek phrases which become quite coherent when translated into Aramaic. Joachim Jeremias was particularly adept at identifying these Semitisms.

Technique #5 - Instances of discontinuity which occur in material falling outside the standard form. When discontinuity occurs within the standard form (e.g., Jesus exorcising demons by His own authority, which makes a clean break from second-Temple Judaism but falls within the standard form of every exorcism story), it may well be historically true, but it can’t be used as evidence of historicity of a particular story because it falls within the standard form. However, if discontinuity occurs in material falling outside the standard form, then historians do have evidence of historicity, because they can be reasonably sure that the Evangelists did not include this simply because it was part of the standard form. It was therefore probably part of a primitive core tradition which was retained throughout the tradition’s development precisely because it was historical. Historians can be reasonably sure that these discontinuous elements were not added at a later period in the development of the tradition because it makes no sense to introduce elements which break from Judaism or embarrass the Church into a narrative that was more apologetically appealing in its original form.

For example, Mark’s story of Jesus’ exorcism of a demoniac boy includes a part about the apostles being unable to cast out the demon. This is not part of the standard form of exorcism stories, and it presents an embarrassment to the apostles (which is not relevant to Mark’s teaching or catechetical purpose, and so is unlikely to be a Marcan redaction); therefore historians may reasonably conclude that it was not gratuitously added to the exorcism story, and very likely goes back to a primitive tradition grounded in history