Why the Historical Jesus Matters (priest, Earth, gospel, crucified)

[Rex]

Why the Historical Jesus Matters

by Stephen T. Davis


?

Suppose one day an astronaut from some far-off galaxy entered my office. Suppose our space traveler was interested in the cultures and religions of the earth, and asked me: "What is this thing called Christianity? Could you tell me please what it is?" I don't know what all I would say in response, but I know what my opening line would be: "Let me tell you about a person whose name is Jesus."

This thought experiment has theological implications. Christian faith begins with Jesus, with stories about who he was and what he did. This is the same impulse that caused the early church, some 30 to 40 years after its founding, to write the Gospels. Christian thinking, worship, and practice must be rightly related to Jesus. If our beliefs and practices are out of touch with the Jesus who actually lived in Palestine centuries ago, Christian faith is in serious trouble. It has no plausible foundation.

Of course the object of Christian faith is not "the historical Jesus," if that means what later theology would call the humanity of Jesus. The object of our faith is the triune God, who is revealed in human history, and especially in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. The Second Person of the Trinity, the Logos, is not the man Jesus but was incarnate in human history as "the historical Jesus."

The quest for the
historical Jesus:
three major phases
Nevertheless, questions about who Jesus was and what he said and did are crucial for Christians. Our faith is not a dropped-from-the-sky code of behavior or a set of timeless teachings from a guru. Ours is a religion of history, a faith whose vital essence consists of great revelatory actions of God in human history, preeminently the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of the Son of God (Heb. 1: 1).

So we need to know about Jesus: Who was he? How did he view himself and his mission? What did he do and say? Why was he crucified? Was he really raised from the dead? What was it about Jesus that brought the Christian church into existence? For most of Christian history, these questions were answered by simply accepting uncritically what the four canonical Gospels said about Jesus. No major differences were expected or detected between the Jesus of the Gospels and the Jesus who actually lived-or, indeed, between the historian's "Jesus of history" and the church's "Christ of faith."



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[Master Hoomer]

Historical Jesus is unimportant. His teachings exist. We are all Christ if we choose to be....

"BELIEVE" and you will be....

The contents matter NOT...the AFFECT of said contents upon conciousness is what matters....

In other words....the bible could be about donald duck.....
if in the end you realised the message and acted upon it...then it has worked....

historical Jesus is as much needed as a historical flying chariot riding blue faced hindu deity...

it is the affect....not the content

[welo]

Originally Posted by Master Hoomer

Historical Jesus is unimportant. His teachings exist. We are all Christ if we choose to be....

Perhaps, and this would be the case if most people actually had a grasp on who the historical Jesus was/is rather than what we understand him to be through a lifetime of Sunday school teachers and Michaelangeloic depictions.

From paragraph 9 of the article:

[The Third Quest] emphasize[s] the Jewishness of Jesus, and consider him an apocalyptic prophet who announced the coming of the Kingdom of God. These folk have no unified theological agenda -- they include Catholics and Protestants, liberals and evangelicals -- but they all emphasize the importance of the death of Jesus. They ask: What was it about Jesus that caused him to be crucified?

This is important because these people are asking the questions most people never think to ask. Everybody knows Jesus was crucified and we've all been told this happened so he could "die for our sins." What seems to escape most people's notice is that he was a political martyr.

Approaching Jesus in this manner we are now able to ask successive extrapolative questions, f.ex.:

* Exactly what was the nature and level of controversy that caused the community to force the Romans to crucify him?

* If the stereotype is accurate and Jesus mostly walked around preaching sweetness and light, how were his actions dubbed so controversial?

* Why are 30 years of the life of Jesus conveniently missing from the bible?

Once the majority of people actually start thinking about and answering these types of questions in a non-dogmatic way and without allocating blame, then we'll be getting somewhere. A Christian saying they don't need to know who Jesus really was because they can supply him with attributes (or remove them) the same way everyone has done for 20 centuries just strikes me as odd.

[Master Hoomer]

To me though there are 2 Jesuses....
Jesus the man......who could have been MANY thiongs...depenmdant upon which scholar you listen to!

And the Christ.....The Christ is a God form...and was around long before Jesus and will be arouind a long time after....

To me..the exploits of the historical Jesus are unimportant..as I wish to gwet to know the Christ....not the ambiguos uncertain "Jesus"....

But thats just me..I realise many have no such sepration of "God" and man....

[Adrianay]

please someone tell me why you believe the Jesus of history is any different from the Jesus of faith

[Runt]

please someone tell me why you believe the Jesus of history is any different from the Jesus of faith

(These are just generalizations)

Jesus of Faith: literally the son of God's, a performer of miracles (transmutation, healing, walking on water), rose from the dead 3 days after being crucified... basically a demi-god.

Jesus of "history": more of a "priest" of God than a literal SON, taught religion all over the place, probably very learned in the "science" of his time, a political figure, possibly had words put in his mouth and his stories exaggerated by the Church later.

[Master Hoomer]

I dont view Jesus as a demi God...
I vview him as a man that was christified....he mediated (acted as a bridge) for the God conciousness of the Christ.......

Ok thats hard to swallow?

Here's the harder bit......we can all do waht Jesus did and mediate a God conciousness......we are all Jesus if we choose

By "God" conciousness...I mean literally that ...conciousness of God...or for us pagans...conciousness of "the" God.... ie the masculine facet of the God

My teacher refers to "the God" as "the son of light"...the archetypal "the God".....(the blue print for all masculine forms of God)....

This all sounds nuts...lol never mind

Historical Jesus....who knows...he could have been lots of things...deepndant upon which scholar you listen to!.....ncluding not having even existed


Sorry I guess this is a lil "un christian"..... :roll: after being in faery land all weekend ..I care less and less about christianity....change is a good thing I guess.....

[Master Hoomer]

Jesus also claimes we were all the Son of God...did he not???

[Runt]

Jesus also claimes we were all the Son of God...did he not???

Unless you're female. Then you're the Daughter of God :P

[Mr Spinkles]

Wow, Rex that is so cool that the person you quoted mentions the "Jesus of History" and the "Christ of Faith".

I came to my Catholic school sophomore year partly because I wanted to study theology and learn more about the Bible. That year we studied the New Testament using a book called "Jesus of History; Christ of Faith"!

Actually, now that I think about it... I do believe that the quote you gave was part of the prologue to that very book! What a coincidence that would be, if it were true! The quote definitely stirs something in my memory.

By the way- I recommend the book to the religious and nonreligious alike, as it is extremely informative and interesting.