Historical Jesus project

by Susan Polege

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Objective Scholarship

I have come to the conclusion that it is impossible to do "objective" scholarship. "Truth" will always be colored by your cultural context and personal experiences. Shorto also says that scholarly objectivity is a myth; everyone has their own biases. It is a basic rule of critical thinking and politics: what is the bias of your source? People cannot turn their biases off. They are a lens that everything is seen through. Being aware of your own bias makes you a little more able to be fair and equitable, however.

For example, two different people are looking at the same statue. The people may disagree about the exact color of the statue material; who the statue depicts, and what point in that person's life the statue is supposed to represent; the thoughts of the artist toward the artistic work, toward the audience, and toward the subject; and countless other points of contention. The same is true about religion and scholarship. People look at Jesus and see countless distinctions.

This disagreement in points of view was most obvious in reading The Meaning of Jesus by Borg and Wright. They had separate points of view on many things, and often were not even diametrically opposed, but were a very different way of understanding something. They both claim to be Christians, which also shows a bias, just as not being a Christian would show a critical bias.