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God of Jesus: The Historical Jesus and the Search for Meaning
This book is the result of the author's involvement with the Jesus Seminar. The premise is that the quest for the historical Jesus has always been closely related to the Christian search for God, and that this is both good and necessary, provided that one properly understands the relationship between history and theology and does not confuse the two.Patterson develops s theology that might properly be called a "Jesus Theology" and it is here that his contribution to the discussions of and about Jesus makes it a most distinctive contribution.
- GenresChristianity
320 pages, Paperback
First published May 28, 1998
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August 8, 2024
A MEMBER OF THE JESUS SEMINAR ASKS QUESTIONS ABOUT THE “MEANING” OF JESUS
Author Stephen Patterson wrote in the Preface of this 1998 book, “This book is not another new proposal for reconstructing the life and teaching of the historical Jesus. It contains a few proposals, but for the most part … [it is] a summary of scholarship ground out over several years by others, whose work I have come to regard as eminently reliable. In fact, one of the aims of this book was to present common biblical scholarship in a way that would be accessible to persons not conversant with its fine points and jargon. More than this, however, in presenting this work I wanted to pose an additional question … what does it MEAN? …what did it mean for Jesus to pronounce a blessing on the poorest of the poor?... What did Jesus’ death mean to his followers?...
“The church must take seriously what scholars today are saying about the Jesus tradition. But for this to happen, scholars must also be willing to say what they think their work means. This is what I have attempted to do in this book. Its purpose is to show how scholars have come to conclusions… and what these conclusions might mean for someone---or a church---who wants to take seriously their implications for the big questions that make life worth while… Scholars should not shrink from asking them. The church should not fear their answer.”
He notes, “many people… experienced [Jesus] as meaningful for their lives. In this book I want to ask what we can know about the historical Jesus, what he did and said… that really meant something to people. It is my attempt to work out what the earliest Christians meant when they said that in this person they had come to know who God it… In this book … I wish… to clarify what it was that early Christians made their claims about Jesus in the first place.” (Pg. 9-10)
He acknowledges, “As I worked on this book I found voices from two worlds constantly playing in my head. On one side were the voices of people … in the Jesus Seminar and other professional colleagues engaged in New Testament scholarship. On the other side were the voices of people I have known through my involvement in the church, theologians and leaders in the United Church of Christ, Eden Seminary, where I teach, and my students… In the following chapters I will be carrying on a conversation with both of these voices at once.” (Pg. 10)
He explains, “the Jesus Seminar… gathered twice a year over the past ten years to study the words and deeds ascribed to Jesus … the Jesus Seminar did do one thing new in this project: it invited others to listen in on this work: lay people, pastors, the news media. Scholars seldom do this… This has meant that over many years the only public voice speaking out on matters of religious faith in our culture has been a very conservative voice and, for the most part, one ignorant of biblical scholarship or opposed to it on ideological grounds. The result has been that disciplined, thoughtful biblical and theological discourse has seldom been brought into the public discussion of religion in our culture… The brunt of this scholarly timidity and cultural ignorance has been borne by pastors and priests educated in reputable divinity schools… where the Bible is never taught as though it were simple history… Those of us in the Jesus Seminar wanted a public discussion, and we got it. But it has not always been pleasant.” (Pg. 6-7)
He says, “What I have been describing … is an alternative to this essentialist approach to Christology. I will call this approach an ‘existential Christology.’ It is based on the idea that the early followers of Jesus did not make claims about him because they had somehow sensed in him a different essence, a palpable divinity…. They experienced him acting in their lives. And what they experienced in the company of this person, Jesus, moved them deeply.” (Pg. 53)
He acknowledges, “In the Jesus Seminar, it was seldom that we could assert, even tenuously, the historical accuracy of any particular event or occasion as it is depicted in the gospels, or in fact, that such and such an event occurred at all. But we did notice that certain types of events are depicted with great frequency in the Jesus tradition… Things like healings and exorcisms, cavorting with the uncleaned and the shamed, conflict with his family---such things began to emerge as ‘typical’ of Jesus in the widespread memory of the early church… we have inherited from earliest Christianity the creative memory of what people experienced in Jesus’ ministry and a collection of stories to illustrate and give form to the memory of that experience.” (Pg. 57-58)
He suggests, “Jesus was a sage, a very clever person with a gift for coining memorable aphorisms and creating illustrative narratives. His sayings and stories had a remarkable ability to stir the thoughts of those who heard them. Scholars of early Christian sayings tradition like to distinguish between proverbs and aphorisms in the corpus of things attributed to Jesus. Proverbs are short, pithy sayings which seem to encapsulate common wisdom that is self-evident to anyone who is reasonably clear of thought.” (Pg. 90)
He observes, “the itinerancy of the Jesus movement was more than a countercultural spurning of conventional lifestyles. It was a symbolic departure from the isolation of human marginalization and expendability … The followers of Jesus forced the issue of community and threw themselves into relationships of mutual care and nurture as the proper enactment of the Empire of God in their own lives and those of the persons they encountered… they created an ‘at-homeness’ with anyone willing to take them in and embrace the new reality of the Empire of God.” (Pg. 108-109)
He notes, “In speaking of god’s Empire as a present reality, already potentially present, Jesus gave expression to the idea that God is not remote, not directly involved in the lives of ordinary people… this basic idea because the doctrine of the incarnation in the confessions of the early church. Jesus himself would not have spoken this about himself; he did not claim to be God incarnate. But he did declare the presence of the Empire of God. This is the origin of the basic Christian conviction that God is present in the human condition. This is the meaning of the incarnation.” (Pg. 113-114)
He says, “Jesus used parables to bring into existence the Empire of God. This new Empire was not about morality. The commandments, though not rejected, are not the heart of the matter either. The Empire of God is about reimagining life on new terms. In his parables, Jesus forces one to look at the world squarely, without illusion, and to see it for what it really is. It is our world, not God’s. It works for some people some of the time. But ultimately it does not work, because it cannot reflect an ultimate reality whose nature is love. Jesus challenged those around him to re-create the world, to reconstruct human life and relationships in a way that would reflect and embody that ultimate reality. That is what the Empire of God is, or would be, if one were to choose to risk it.” (Pg. 162)
He asserts, “the newest phase of research … [is] calling into question the apocalyptic hypothesis… New Testament scholars have become accustomed to entertaining a view of the Empire of God that is not apocalyptic… we are now arriving at a new consensus position about the reign of God: Jesus did not conceive of it as a future, apocalyptic event, but as a present reality to be experienced as breaking in upon the present world of human existence.” (Pg. 177)
He clarifies, “I do not mean to mock those who believe in the literal truth of all they read in the gospels. I only mean to point out why historical critical scholars of the Bible have maintained for more than a century that the gospels are not history, and in fact were never intended to be read as such. Among such scholars there are many, like myself, who are confessing Christians. There are even some, like myself, who still believe in the resurrection.”
(Pg. 214) Later, he adds, “[Peter, James, and John] had known Jesus and had been in his company. Long before his death, they had committed themselves fully to Jesus’ vision of the Empire of God… It was people like these who would have been the first to say, ‘God raised Jesus from the dead.’… They would continue the ministry of Jesus, bolstered by his spirit, in the confidence that God had raised him from the dead.” (Pg. 232-233) He summarizes, “To believe in the resurrection is to have faith that God would redeem the life and work of Jesus from the death sentence imposed on it by history… Resurrection is not about the resuscitation of a corpse, that one great miracle that proves we are right after all. It is about the resuscitation of hope in the face of cruel realities.” (Pg. 239)
He summarizes, “This basic reality that Jesus experienced as God had the character of love… Did Jesus believe it? I think he really did. He boiled his own faith down to just two propositions: to love God and to love one’s neighbor… This is the reality that exists as already present, an Empire ‘within you,’ that can be as powerful in the shaping of human life and relationships as we want it to be.” (Pg. 245)
He concludes, “when we bother to read the gospels, that offensive life and challenging voice are still there, clearly audible among the enthusiastic confessional claims of his followers… Human existence can become more meaningful. There is a transcendent reality that can transform us if we will but let it. Jesus’ life is one that draws to it a worshipping community because… it allows us to see through the pretense of meaning we erect around the great trophies to be won in a successful life. Jesus experienced intimately a transcendent reality to existence that was more real… than what life… can offer. It is the transcendent quality that we call God. Its nature is love. This is what Jesus knew.” (Pg. 248-249)
This book will be of great interest to those studying the historical Jesus and his current meaning for all of us.
Author Stephen Patterson wrote in the Preface of this 1998 book, “This book is not another new proposal for reconstructing the life and teaching of the historical Jesus. It contains a few proposals, but for the most part … [it is] a summary of scholarship ground out over several years by others, whose work I have come to regard as eminently reliable. In fact, one of the aims of this book was to present common biblical scholarship in a way that would be accessible to persons not conversant with its fine points and jargon. More than this, however, in presenting this work I wanted to pose an additional question … what does it MEAN? …what did it mean for Jesus to pronounce a blessing on the poorest of the poor?... What did Jesus’ death mean to his followers?...
“The church must take seriously what scholars today are saying about the Jesus tradition. But for this to happen, scholars must also be willing to say what they think their work means. This is what I have attempted to do in this book. Its purpose is to show how scholars have come to conclusions… and what these conclusions might mean for someone---or a church---who wants to take seriously their implications for the big questions that make life worth while… Scholars should not shrink from asking them. The church should not fear their answer.”
He notes, “many people… experienced [Jesus] as meaningful for their lives. In this book I want to ask what we can know about the historical Jesus, what he did and said… that really meant something to people. It is my attempt to work out what the earliest Christians meant when they said that in this person they had come to know who God it… In this book … I wish… to clarify what it was that early Christians made their claims about Jesus in the first place.” (Pg. 9-10)
He acknowledges, “As I worked on this book I found voices from two worlds constantly playing in my head. On one side were the voices of people … in the Jesus Seminar and other professional colleagues engaged in New Testament scholarship. On the other side were the voices of people I have known through my involvement in the church, theologians and leaders in the United Church of Christ, Eden Seminary, where I teach, and my students… In the following chapters I will be carrying on a conversation with both of these voices at once.” (Pg. 10)
He explains, “the Jesus Seminar… gathered twice a year over the past ten years to study the words and deeds ascribed to Jesus … the Jesus Seminar did do one thing new in this project: it invited others to listen in on this work: lay people, pastors, the news media. Scholars seldom do this… This has meant that over many years the only public voice speaking out on matters of religious faith in our culture has been a very conservative voice and, for the most part, one ignorant of biblical scholarship or opposed to it on ideological grounds. The result has been that disciplined, thoughtful biblical and theological discourse has seldom been brought into the public discussion of religion in our culture… The brunt of this scholarly timidity and cultural ignorance has been borne by pastors and priests educated in reputable divinity schools… where the Bible is never taught as though it were simple history… Those of us in the Jesus Seminar wanted a public discussion, and we got it. But it has not always been pleasant.” (Pg. 6-7)
He says, “What I have been describing … is an alternative to this essentialist approach to Christology. I will call this approach an ‘existential Christology.’ It is based on the idea that the early followers of Jesus did not make claims about him because they had somehow sensed in him a different essence, a palpable divinity…. They experienced him acting in their lives. And what they experienced in the company of this person, Jesus, moved them deeply.” (Pg. 53)
He acknowledges, “In the Jesus Seminar, it was seldom that we could assert, even tenuously, the historical accuracy of any particular event or occasion as it is depicted in the gospels, or in fact, that such and such an event occurred at all. But we did notice that certain types of events are depicted with great frequency in the Jesus tradition… Things like healings and exorcisms, cavorting with the uncleaned and the shamed, conflict with his family---such things began to emerge as ‘typical’ of Jesus in the widespread memory of the early church… we have inherited from earliest Christianity the creative memory of what people experienced in Jesus’ ministry and a collection of stories to illustrate and give form to the memory of that experience.” (Pg. 57-58)
He suggests, “Jesus was a sage, a very clever person with a gift for coining memorable aphorisms and creating illustrative narratives. His sayings and stories had a remarkable ability to stir the thoughts of those who heard them. Scholars of early Christian sayings tradition like to distinguish between proverbs and aphorisms in the corpus of things attributed to Jesus. Proverbs are short, pithy sayings which seem to encapsulate common wisdom that is self-evident to anyone who is reasonably clear of thought.” (Pg. 90)
He observes, “the itinerancy of the Jesus movement was more than a countercultural spurning of conventional lifestyles. It was a symbolic departure from the isolation of human marginalization and expendability … The followers of Jesus forced the issue of community and threw themselves into relationships of mutual care and nurture as the proper enactment of the Empire of God in their own lives and those of the persons they encountered… they created an ‘at-homeness’ with anyone willing to take them in and embrace the new reality of the Empire of God.” (Pg. 108-109)
He notes, “In speaking of god’s Empire as a present reality, already potentially present, Jesus gave expression to the idea that God is not remote, not directly involved in the lives of ordinary people… this basic idea because the doctrine of the incarnation in the confessions of the early church. Jesus himself would not have spoken this about himself; he did not claim to be God incarnate. But he did declare the presence of the Empire of God. This is the origin of the basic Christian conviction that God is present in the human condition. This is the meaning of the incarnation.” (Pg. 113-114)
He says, “Jesus used parables to bring into existence the Empire of God. This new Empire was not about morality. The commandments, though not rejected, are not the heart of the matter either. The Empire of God is about reimagining life on new terms. In his parables, Jesus forces one to look at the world squarely, without illusion, and to see it for what it really is. It is our world, not God’s. It works for some people some of the time. But ultimately it does not work, because it cannot reflect an ultimate reality whose nature is love. Jesus challenged those around him to re-create the world, to reconstruct human life and relationships in a way that would reflect and embody that ultimate reality. That is what the Empire of God is, or would be, if one were to choose to risk it.” (Pg. 162)
He asserts, “the newest phase of research … [is] calling into question the apocalyptic hypothesis… New Testament scholars have become accustomed to entertaining a view of the Empire of God that is not apocalyptic… we are now arriving at a new consensus position about the reign of God: Jesus did not conceive of it as a future, apocalyptic event, but as a present reality to be experienced as breaking in upon the present world of human existence.” (Pg. 177)
He clarifies, “I do not mean to mock those who believe in the literal truth of all they read in the gospels. I only mean to point out why historical critical scholars of the Bible have maintained for more than a century that the gospels are not history, and in fact were never intended to be read as such. Among such scholars there are many, like myself, who are confessing Christians. There are even some, like myself, who still believe in the resurrection.”
(Pg. 214) Later, he adds, “[Peter, James, and John] had known Jesus and had been in his company. Long before his death, they had committed themselves fully to Jesus’ vision of the Empire of God… It was people like these who would have been the first to say, ‘God raised Jesus from the dead.’… They would continue the ministry of Jesus, bolstered by his spirit, in the confidence that God had raised him from the dead.” (Pg. 232-233) He summarizes, “To believe in the resurrection is to have faith that God would redeem the life and work of Jesus from the death sentence imposed on it by history… Resurrection is not about the resuscitation of a corpse, that one great miracle that proves we are right after all. It is about the resuscitation of hope in the face of cruel realities.” (Pg. 239)
He summarizes, “This basic reality that Jesus experienced as God had the character of love… Did Jesus believe it? I think he really did. He boiled his own faith down to just two propositions: to love God and to love one’s neighbor… This is the reality that exists as already present, an Empire ‘within you,’ that can be as powerful in the shaping of human life and relationships as we want it to be.” (Pg. 245)
He concludes, “when we bother to read the gospels, that offensive life and challenging voice are still there, clearly audible among the enthusiastic confessional claims of his followers… Human existence can become more meaningful. There is a transcendent reality that can transform us if we will but let it. Jesus’ life is one that draws to it a worshipping community because… it allows us to see through the pretense of meaning we erect around the great trophies to be won in a successful life. Jesus experienced intimately a transcendent reality to existence that was more real… than what life… can offer. It is the transcendent quality that we call God. Its nature is love. This is what Jesus knew.” (Pg. 248-249)
This book will be of great interest to those studying the historical Jesus and his current meaning for all of us.
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February 6, 2017Liberal Christian perspective, academic and very readable.
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