Posted: Jan 31, 2012 1:41 am
TimONeill wrote:
Er, yup. Way back in 1906 Albert Schweitzer's ground breaking classic, The Quest of the Historical Jesus, cautioned about reconstructions of the historical Jesus that bear too close a similarity to their reconstructors.
A novel approach indeed, which is why Schweitzer simply asked himself, "What would the 'real' Jesus of the first century look like?," and then built on ideas (borrowed from David Friedrich Strauss and others) to construct a "Jesus" that would satisfy his main criteria of not sounding modern or pious. Big deal.
TimONeill wrote:
"The Jesus Seminar" is a overwhelmingly liberal American group of scholars who have come up with a Jesus who is remarkably like themselves: radical, socially-progressive, non-violent, sympathetic to the poor and marginalised, preaching a message of wisdom and self/social transformation. As one of their critics once noted, he's more "Jesus of California" than Jesus of Nazareth. Unfortunately for their hippy Jesus, the gospels and other NT materials are riddled with all this apocalyptic stuff about fire and last judgements and the unrighteous being swept away by a fearsome Messiah and an angry Yahweh. Which is all, like, totally unmellow and not at all in keeping with their Jesus. So they attempt to make this all go away by trying to argue that this is actually a later addition, and not an early stratum at all.
All perfectly valid arguments, considering the sources, and ones made by quite a few scholars who aren't Americans or liberals. And some of the 150 scholars associated with the Jesus Seminar did accept the apocalyptic model, so your attempt to smear the whole seminar is utterly groundless.
TimONeill wrote:
Bart Ehrman gives a good, succinct summary of why this doesn't work at all in his Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium pp. 132-134.
One of the weakest of all modern "historic Jesus" books, mind you. Over 90% of it is perfectly compatible with NT Wright's or William Lane Craig's apologetics industries. That you find it some sort of brilliant treatise about the "real" Jesus is laughable.
TimONeill wrote:
One of the nice things about the apocalyptic Jesus idea is that it's advocates escape Schweitzer's trap of resembling their reconstruction - Paula Fredriksen is an agnostic Jew, Bart Ehrman is an agnostic ex-Christian and Dale Allison is (I think) a liberal Christian (of some kind). None of them are apocalypcists. Unlike the aging hippies of the "Jesus Seminar" they aren't arguing for a Jesus that is simply a reflection of their own ideologies, but for an uncomfortable and not terribly attractive Jesus who fits his historical and religious context. That's why it has a ring of authenticity that the contrived hippy Jesus can never have.
And all of them are theologians deeply invested in believing they've discovered a "real" Jesus to worship in a modern, semi-secular way. Which is, in fact, very much a reflection of their own ideologies and self-interests. If you cannot have miracle-working Jesus, the "apocalyptic" one will do just fine as an academic consolation prize. As Schweitzer himself reminds his readers in the epilogue of The Quest of the Historical Jesus, the Galilean holy man "means something to our world because a mighty spiritual force streams forth from Him and flows through our time also. This fact can neither be shaken nor confirmed by any historical discovery. It is the solid foundation of Christianity." Hardly a statement of objective historic inquiry.