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Searching for Jesus

Searching for Jesus. NT 301: Introduction to the New Testament New Brunswick Theological Seminary Virginia Wiles. Who Is Jesus?. Films. Who Do You Say that I Am?. How Do We Know?. Using the Sources New Testament: Gospels and Paul Early Church Fathers

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Searching for Jesus

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  1. Searching for Jesus NT 301: Introduction to the New Testament New Brunswick Theological Seminary Virginia Wiles

  2. Who Is Jesus?

  3. Films

  4. Who Do You Say that I Am?

  5. How Do We Know? • Using the Sources • New Testament: Gospels and Paul • Early Church Fathers • Non-Christian contemporary literature • Using our Minds • The Importance of Methodology

  6. The Rise of Historical Consciousness • Cause and Effect • Historical distance WhowasJesus? Thus, the question arises…

  7. How does who Jesus WAS compare withWho Jesus IS? The Jesus of History and The Christ of Faith

  8. Some Background in the History of New Testament Scholarship

  9. The Effects of the Enlightenment • John Locke (1632-1704) • Natural Law & Miracles • The Reasonableness of Christianity as Delivered in the Scriptures (anon, 1695) • “properly understood, the Scriptures contain nothing that was in conflict with reason” • Herman Samuel Reimarus (1695-1768) • published posthumously • absolute distinction between what Jesus said and did and what the Evangelists reported him to have said and done.

  10. On Reimarus -- “It is not overstating the case to claim that all historical study of Jesus is a critical appropriation of this view or a debate with it.”--Leander Keck

  11. Liberal Reconstructions of Jesus • Holtzmann (1832-1910) • Markan priority • Thus, Mark is most “authentic” • Adolf von Harnack (1851-1930) • Das Wesen des Christentum

  12. The “Liberal View”: (Harnack) • Inward rule of God • Infinite worth of human soul • Higher righteousness and the command of love

  13. Attacks on the Liberal Reconstructions Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) The Quest for the Historical Jesus (1899) showed that the reconstructed Jesus was a retrojection of the scholar’s own paradigm Apocalypticism

  14. After Schweitzer -- • Martin Kähler: • the Jesus of History vs. the Christ of Faith • Rudolph Bultmann (1884-197?) • How did the Proclaimer become the Proclaimed?

  15. A Summary of the First Quest --The Historical Jesus... • Viewed as incompatible with Christianity (Reimarus) • Viewed as bulwark of true religion (Harnack) • Viewed as incompatible with MODERN sensibilities (Schweitzer) • Brings to expression an understanding of human existence (Bultmann)

  16. The New Quest • Ernst Käsemann • Bultmann’s student • Criterion of Dissimilarity -- when there are no grounds either for deriving a tradition from Judaism or for ascribing it to primitive Christianity

  17. Critique of Dissimilarity • Inevitably separates Jesus from both ancient Judaism and early Christianity • Criterion too ill-defined, leaving far too much scope for influence from the quester’s own prejudice

  18. A “Third Quest” • Close study of Judaism • Geza Vermes, Jesus the Jew (1973) • E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (1975) • Defined by N.T. Wright (1986) • Jewish Jesus • Proper attitude to primary sources • Importance of eschatology • Understanding the historical causes of crucifixion

  19. The Third Quest Jesus must be understood as a comprehensible and yet, so to speak, crucifiable first-century Jew, whatever the theological or hermeneutical consequences. -- N.T. Wright

  20. The Jesus Seminar • Concerned to determine “what Jesus actually said and did” • Major players include -- • John Dominic Crossan • Marcus Borg • Not limited to canonical gospels • **Gospel of Thomas**

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