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Jesus in History an Approach To the Stud
This text is a study of the historical Jesus. Specific literary sources are referenced - Roman and Jewish historians, the individual gospels, and other early Christian sources.
280 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1970
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December 1, 2020
This dense but short work attempts to use the Biblical gospels -- Matthew, Mark, Luke and John -- and extrabiblical sources where appropriate, to reconstruct a history of Jesus using the historian's form-critical tools. Only recommended for college-age students, the conclusions reached are unsatisfactory because the story of Jesus was not written as biography, but as apology for the Christian faith.
June 28, 2017
"But what are the specific historical results from the critical assessment of the gospel tradition? Admittedly, we are dealing with probabilities, and the results are subject to modification in light of new insights. But a consistent picture does emerge:
Jesus appeared on the Palestinian scene as an itinerant teacher, probably self-taught, so that there was deep resentment of his authoritative manner among the official religious leadership of Palestine. He held his central mission to be the announcement of the imminent coming of God's Kingdom, and he regarded his extraordinary powers of healing and exorcism as evidence that the powers of the Kingdom were already breaking into the present situation. He sought to call together a band of followers who by repentance would prepare themselves for the impending event, and he therefore offered a severe critique of Israel and new criteria for acceptance within the membership of the covenant community. He interpreted the Law in a radical way that challenged the authority of official interpreters. The impetus for the redefinition of the people of God is likely to have come as a consequence of his associations with John the Baptist, although he parted company with John, probably on the issue of Jesus' conviction that the Kingdom was open to sinners and religious outcasts who truly repented. At the same time, Jesus refused to join with the insurrectionist movements of his time, which sought to establish God's rule by their own initiative. Ironically, it was through the false charge that he was a revolutionary that he was put to death by the Romans - a charge brought by the religious leaders whose authority his pronouncements seemed to threaten. His method of teaching was characterized as to content by eschatological pronouncement, and as to form by parable and reinterpretation of the Law and of religious institutions. It is likely that he came to realize that the path he had set out on would lead to death, though we have no way of knowing when he came to this conclusion or whether he sought to force the issue. His metaphorical references to the "baptism" and the "cup" in Mark 10, and to the impossibility of drinking the cup until the coming of the Kingdom of God (Mark 14:25), suggest that he expected both death and ultimate vindication. But this is not to say he predicted his passion and resurrection, as the gospel tradition later reported. The tradition faithfully points to the genuineness of his anxiety in the face of death, even though it was starting to swallow up his humanity in various types of divine-man conceptions, and even though the whole of the tradition was placed in a new framework of meaning by the resurrection faith.
What we are dealing with in the gospel tradition is not objective historical evidence that has become overlaid with the claims of Christian faith, but with evidence that in its entirety stems from the witness of faith at various stages of development. Critical analysis of the tradition enables us to differentiate between earlier and later stages of faith and provides us our best - indeed, almost our only - clues to the personal life that evoked that faith. Such study enables us to achieve a modest but significant goal: to discern how diverse were the ways in which the tradition about Jesus was appropriated in the period from the history of Jesus in his own time to the history of Jesus in the church and modern world."
Jesus appeared on the Palestinian scene as an itinerant teacher, probably self-taught, so that there was deep resentment of his authoritative manner among the official religious leadership of Palestine. He held his central mission to be the announcement of the imminent coming of God's Kingdom, and he regarded his extraordinary powers of healing and exorcism as evidence that the powers of the Kingdom were already breaking into the present situation. He sought to call together a band of followers who by repentance would prepare themselves for the impending event, and he therefore offered a severe critique of Israel and new criteria for acceptance within the membership of the covenant community. He interpreted the Law in a radical way that challenged the authority of official interpreters. The impetus for the redefinition of the people of God is likely to have come as a consequence of his associations with John the Baptist, although he parted company with John, probably on the issue of Jesus' conviction that the Kingdom was open to sinners and religious outcasts who truly repented. At the same time, Jesus refused to join with the insurrectionist movements of his time, which sought to establish God's rule by their own initiative. Ironically, it was through the false charge that he was a revolutionary that he was put to death by the Romans - a charge brought by the religious leaders whose authority his pronouncements seemed to threaten. His method of teaching was characterized as to content by eschatological pronouncement, and as to form by parable and reinterpretation of the Law and of religious institutions. It is likely that he came to realize that the path he had set out on would lead to death, though we have no way of knowing when he came to this conclusion or whether he sought to force the issue. His metaphorical references to the "baptism" and the "cup" in Mark 10, and to the impossibility of drinking the cup until the coming of the Kingdom of God (Mark 14:25), suggest that he expected both death and ultimate vindication. But this is not to say he predicted his passion and resurrection, as the gospel tradition later reported. The tradition faithfully points to the genuineness of his anxiety in the face of death, even though it was starting to swallow up his humanity in various types of divine-man conceptions, and even though the whole of the tradition was placed in a new framework of meaning by the resurrection faith.
What we are dealing with in the gospel tradition is not objective historical evidence that has become overlaid with the claims of Christian faith, but with evidence that in its entirety stems from the witness of faith at various stages of development. Critical analysis of the tradition enables us to differentiate between earlier and later stages of faith and provides us our best - indeed, almost our only - clues to the personal life that evoked that faith. Such study enables us to achieve a modest but significant goal: to discern how diverse were the ways in which the tradition about Jesus was appropriated in the period from the history of Jesus in his own time to the history of Jesus in the church and modern world."
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews