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Profiles of Jesus
Can the authentic words and deed of Jesus identified by the Jesus Seminar furnish a sufficient basis for a credible profile of the Jesus of history? That is the challenge faced by the contributors to this volume. Their efforts have resulted in a unique collection of studied impressions of Jesus. Here readers will see not Jesus the icon of myth and creed, but a provocative young man of first-century Palestine whose vision and determination to live the vision gave birth to a new form of faith and changed the course of history.
- GenresChristianity
268 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 2002
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August 24, 2024
A SERIES OF ESSAYS USED BY THE JESUS SEMINAR
The Preface to this 2002 book states, "As the Fellows of the Jesus Seminar neared the end of the twelve year period during which they systematically examined all of the words and deeds attributed to Jesus in the ancient sources, together with the reported events of his life, attention turned to the question of what kind of figure was emerging from the evidence the Seminar had found to be most probably historically authentic... Nine of the fifteen profiles written for Seminar sessions have been selected for this volume... together with three other profiles [and two additional essays]." (Pg. vii)
Robert Funk [Honest to Jesus: Jesus for a New Millennium] says, "His language is concrete and specific. Jesus always talked about God's domain in everyday, mundane terms... He would not have said, 'All human beings have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.' He would not have confessed, 'I believe in God the Father Almighty.' It never occurred to him to assert that 'God is love.' Jesus did not have a doctrine of God; he had only experience of God." (Pg. 10-11) He adds, "Jesus may be described as a comic savant. He was perhaps the first standup Jewish comic. A comic savant is a sage who embeds wisdom in humor, a humorist who shuns practical advice." (Pg. 12)
Mahlon H. Smith observes, "Much has been written in recent years to challenge J. Jeremias' thesis [in The Prayers of Jesus] that the Aramaic word 'Abba' was Jesus' distinctive way of addressing God, indicating his unique sense of childlike intimacy with the Deity. Yet Jeremias' observations have not yet been disproved. Though scholars have produced many examples of Jews addressing God as '(Our or my) Father (in heaven),' it remains a fact that no example of a Jew using the Aramaic form Abba as a direct address to God has yet been found apart from primitive Jesus tradition." (Pg. 115)
Marcus Borg [Jesus: A New Vision] says, "for ecstatics, religious conviction is not the result of strong belief in 'secondhand religion'... Cognition is the product of firsthand religious experience... God becomes an experiential reality, and it is in this sense that an ecstatic knows God. Jesus seems to have been one of these ecstatics. He was a Jewish mystic... Moreover, such experience seems the best explanation of what else we see in the traditions about Jesus: the foundation of his subversive wisdom, the ground of his passion and courage as a social prophet, and the source of his radical social vision." (Pg. 132)
Other essays are by James M. Robinson ['New Quest for the Historical Jesus and Other Essays'], Kathleen Corley ['Women & the Historical Jesus: Feminist Myths of Christian Origins'], John Dominic Crossan ['The Historical Jesus]', and others.
This diverse book will be of keen interest to those studying the historical Jesus---and particularly as he is interpreted by the Jesus Seminar.
The Preface to this 2002 book states, "As the Fellows of the Jesus Seminar neared the end of the twelve year period during which they systematically examined all of the words and deeds attributed to Jesus in the ancient sources, together with the reported events of his life, attention turned to the question of what kind of figure was emerging from the evidence the Seminar had found to be most probably historically authentic... Nine of the fifteen profiles written for Seminar sessions have been selected for this volume... together with three other profiles [and two additional essays]." (Pg. vii)
Robert Funk [Honest to Jesus: Jesus for a New Millennium] says, "His language is concrete and specific. Jesus always talked about God's domain in everyday, mundane terms... He would not have said, 'All human beings have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.' He would not have confessed, 'I believe in God the Father Almighty.' It never occurred to him to assert that 'God is love.' Jesus did not have a doctrine of God; he had only experience of God." (Pg. 10-11) He adds, "Jesus may be described as a comic savant. He was perhaps the first standup Jewish comic. A comic savant is a sage who embeds wisdom in humor, a humorist who shuns practical advice." (Pg. 12)
Mahlon H. Smith observes, "Much has been written in recent years to challenge J. Jeremias' thesis [in The Prayers of Jesus] that the Aramaic word 'Abba' was Jesus' distinctive way of addressing God, indicating his unique sense of childlike intimacy with the Deity. Yet Jeremias' observations have not yet been disproved. Though scholars have produced many examples of Jews addressing God as '(Our or my) Father (in heaven),' it remains a fact that no example of a Jew using the Aramaic form Abba as a direct address to God has yet been found apart from primitive Jesus tradition." (Pg. 115)
Marcus Borg [Jesus: A New Vision] says, "for ecstatics, religious conviction is not the result of strong belief in 'secondhand religion'... Cognition is the product of firsthand religious experience... God becomes an experiential reality, and it is in this sense that an ecstatic knows God. Jesus seems to have been one of these ecstatics. He was a Jewish mystic... Moreover, such experience seems the best explanation of what else we see in the traditions about Jesus: the foundation of his subversive wisdom, the ground of his passion and courage as a social prophet, and the source of his radical social vision." (Pg. 132)
Other essays are by James M. Robinson ['New Quest for the Historical Jesus and Other Essays'], Kathleen Corley ['Women & the Historical Jesus: Feminist Myths of Christian Origins'], John Dominic Crossan ['The Historical Jesus]', and others.
This diverse book will be of keen interest to those studying the historical Jesus---and particularly as he is interpreted by the Jesus Seminar.
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