- What can we know about the historical Jesus? Jesus lived in history, what can we truly say?
- We will begin from below: the historical reality of Jesus. See in the Synoptic of Jewish history leading to the birth of Jesus (pg 3)
- To understand “who is Jesus? Where did he come from?” We can’t understand Jesus of the 1st century of the Jew without appreciating the 2000 yrs of Jewish history…
- We begin with the call of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob… 600 yrs. They were in a sojourn of
- Judges and Kings: Saul, David, Solomon… 922 divided kingdom into North- 722 (
Ex: - Good Samaritan
- The ten lepers
- The Samaritan woman in Jn 4
- The simple thing of recognizing and understanding the historical background is to make the gospels and the picture of Jesus come more alive: Jesus makes the Samaritan a model of virtue for the Jew.
- So we need to know the background of the Jewish tradition to understand more the person of Jesus.
- God sent a pagan to carry out his plan in the history: Cyrus of Persia took over
- All these details effect the Jewish Jesus and under the rule of the Roman: Jesus was born.
- The influence of the Roman- Herod the Great…
- Christianity is a historical religion. We accept God speaks to us in and through history… in order to entering our understanding of FAITH.
HISTORICAL EVENT + FAITH INTERPRETATION = REVELATION
Ex: Exodus event
- How did we come to revelation? Scripture or the person of Jesus is the actual event that was understood in faith by which we come to understand the Word of God.
- Christianity became a historical religion: “born in the womb of the virgin Mary, suffer under Pontus Pilate, died and was buried…” are the historical event of Jesus.
See some images of Jesus in the hand out (1&2): how did Jesus look? Can we truly know the historical Jesus? What can we say about the historical Jesus? Which one is correct?
WHAT CAN WE SAY ABOUT THE HISTORICAL JESUS?
- Historical Jesus refers to Jesus of Nazareth, his early life, how he constructed his life…
- The gospels are written for PROCLAMATION and from FAITH to FAITH. How can we know about the earthly Jesus in the Gospel? So the quest for the historical Jesus began…
- QUEST: the search, a quest, investigation, searching the historical Jesus… is more popular today. Who is the real Jesus? What can we say about him?
- Contemporary humanity are man search for answer the question in regarding to the historical Jesus.
- This is particularly true after the Enlightenment and the Scientific revolution. We think differently today that the people would have thought 2000 yrs ago. The critical method to get the historical elements from the Gospel- but the Gospels are not historical biography in the modern sense.
A DISTINGTION OF THE TWO GERMAN WORDS:
HISTORISCH
GESCHICHTLICH
Ex:
Historisch: refer to a historical data, a historical fact or a simple fact of history…
Geschichtlich: refer to interpreted history or what is the significant of a historical fact for a particular group of people only. Or a certain event in history has a particular meaning to a particular group.
In terms of searching for historical Jesus, at the heart of the Gospel there is historical facts/ data: Mary, Joseph flight to
What is his significant/ important for us are Christian and followers of Jesus?
- There is a interrelationship between the two words. They interpreted data is not a voice/ way of historical fact but historical fact has some special important interpreted history- they are interpreted in the light of Faith and resurrection of Jesus
- The Gospel we have is a interpreted history, in faith and in the light of resurrection for a cmty of faith, that is why they were written.
What can we know about the historical Jesus? What kind of frame work used for interpreting the Gospel and what has happen as we try to answer the question arise today?
- It is “faith seeking understanding”
- Using some of the insight of French philosopher: PAUL RICOER (Hermeneutics: to interpret, science of interpretation-Glossary pg 205)
+ Born in
+ He focused on the methodology of centualism and the philosophy of language: the Hermeneutics. It is very helpful particular for answering the questions of historical Jesus.
+ He survived during the WW II after great suffering (like Karl Rahner).
+ He died
+ His struggles were: how to reconcile faith and the reality of the world we are living today.
+ Last yr he got a prize by the Congress for Achievement Human Science.
How do we interpret Philosophy and theology? How do we do that. Paul Rieocur gave us 4 stages:
a. In life and in our faith we begin with first Naivete:
- Naivete : a childlike, accepted, a simple believe, in uncritical accepting faith
- Having a believe system that bases on a fundamental story or narrative, myth and put further into the world around us (Creation story)
- All people have narrative of their own origin and that narrative explains everything.
- For the Christian, the Bible is fulfilled this function- interpreting of our origin in the world, of evil, sin and conflict… where do we turn to the answer: The Bible has all the answer- literally.
- This is what we are talking about: simple childlike- naivete- this is the way the creation comes about. We move beyond the metaphysical interpretation, math and sciences, cause and effect in the modern world
- Two characteristic of this new ways of looking at things:
1. Imperial natural sciences
2. Historical consciousness
ð the simple Naivete way of understanding our world we don’t accept any more. So what happen when we think that the Gospel answers everything?
b. Hermeneutic of suspicion:
We begin to doubt about the Bible, Religion and Science are in conflict and we are very suspicious about the answer.
c. We have to move to Hermeneutic Recovery:
- This is a process of integrating our faith: with insight: from the imperial nature sciences, social sciences, with our growing historical consciousness.
- The scientific view and our faith struggles for integration. Ex: the
d. A second Naivete: (reintegration of Faith)
- A second view in which faith and science base on historical data can be integrated.
- We have faith, 2nd level of believing, but now it has grown mature- integration faith: people of faith and people of good scientific knowledge are not in conflict.
- We need Christian who are knowledgeable about science to be able to take your faith and explain it in such a way that it’s going to meet the need of other humanity.
- It is very helpful for us personally to realize that all of us has to go through it again and again in a # way.
- As we grow as human being, choice, religious cmty… we are constantly going through this framework.
- Help us to appreciate what do we search for the historical Jesus, how to realize our reintegration will guide us the question we have… this QUEST all about.
THE 1ST QUEST
- 1800 yrs ago Xtn took for granted the picture of Jesus until the 18th century with the Enlightenment. The 1st quest is said to begin with Reimarus (1694-1768)
- This Jesus is a Jewish revolutionary, unsuccessful Messiah, a teacher, to establish a new religion is not Jesus’ intention but the disciples set up the religion.
- His writing has not great impact.
- The 1/3 1800 : Supernaturalist
Rationalist
a. Supernaturalist: the traditional self understanding of Xtn faith from the Scripture is correct. Any thing that contradict is false. No error in the Bible.
b. Nationalist: Tempting to ask some other questions: they often deny the possibility of supernatural event, they even explain away miracle… however, not much progress in this but the debate continue…
c. Some important figures…
1. Chritian Weisse: 1800, the 1st one to promote Markan hypothesis. Mk was the 1st one who wrote the gospel and Mt and Lk built upon this … and it was widely accepted.
2. Bruno Bauer: the figure of Jesus and Paul never existed. Jesus was instructed of the Jewish apocalyptic literature and Paul was instructed by the Hellenistic mythical or mystery of religion.
3. Harnak: we should not be worried about all the historical question b/c the essence of Xtnity does not like a document or moral worship.. The essence of Xtnity is Jesus and His message. The key element of Jesus’ message is “the coming of the KDG, so you don’t need a historical Jesus, his message is more important
4. William Wrede: Mk is product of Theology: Jesus is Divine but Markan is not a reliable source for the historical Jesus.
Ex: In Synoptic, we have the idea of the Messianic Secret Mk 8,30; Mt 9,13; Lk 8,56, the Transfiguration. They are simple elements that through and through “Messianic Secret” until the people have a full understand of what does it mean to be a Messiah: suffer and die- the clear picture of Jesus.
End of the 1st quest: (Old Quest)
- Indeed, Jesus was a noble figure but who this historical Jesus is, they are projecting their own personal image of Jesus. They don’t have any historical data to go on.
- Rausch (pg 13) with Schweitzer the old quest came to an end. It produced some insight and principle: Mk: the Messianic Secret, Quelle source,… it end with little progressive.
- We never get to a satifactory: Naivete
The decline of historical Jesus rearch (1906- 1953)
- Common view expresses by Karl Barth, indeed the way we should understand is the whole the relationship of Jesus and the Gospel portrait of Jesus can not be expressed in terms of biography so he express in this way: the historical Jesus and the Christ of faith are separated in the gospel. They are two #. So we just accept the Christ of faith. Karl express a great skepticism that some how we get the historical Jesus from the
THE 2ND QUEST: (New quest) (pg 13 Rausch and pg 2 Historical Jesus)
The quest for Jesus has a new turn in 1953 with Ernest Kasemann. He was a former student of Bultmann. There is a reason to launch a new quest to the historical Jesus, why? He said that there are three key words:
1. Legitimate: searching for who Jesus is and historical aspect is important.
2. Necessary: if we don’t search we don’t have the answer for those who say that XTn is only a myth.
3. Possible: there are new form of historical reasons are available.
Kasemann said: “a new quest is now possible, a necessary to keep Xtn faith firmly tied to the life of the history of Jesus”. So the 2nd quest begins.
- They are not much more than the Fundamentalist viewpoint
- A quest is possible, new methods are available that particularly was refer to Scripture study (Form Criticism/ Literary Criticism/ Redaction Criticism/ Source Criticism)
- The 2nd quest had a positive goal: It was promote a mature faith of Xtn. Some of the result are:
1. A recognition of the Gospel for what they are. They are proclamation, good news
2. Accepting that historical figure why we need the Gospel presentation.
3. They gave us a picture if Jesus by focus on his religious significance
4. They help us appreciate that the evangelists are “Pastoral Theologians”. They saved the passage/ picture of Xt to the Jewish audience.
5. The Bible remains a “church book”: meaning the interpretation of the Bible must be done within the ecclesial context- the context of the Church. (Pg 15-16 Rausch)
THE 3RD QUEST: began in 1980 with the JESUS SEMINAR.
- They base on social science more than other method such as form criticism, redaction and tradition.
- Research into 2nd
- They investigate the structure of Galilean life, family and social relationship…
- Emphasize the historical and also move beyond the close rationalist system of secular modernity.
- Some figures of this quest: John Meier, N.T Wright, Sanders, Harvey… Meier and the Jesus Seminar has a special notice.
John Meier’s background:
- One of the most ambitious modern reconstruction of the historical Jesus.
- A diocesan priest from NY.
- The 1st class of Biblical scholar. He is the one truly explore the historical Jesus and continue to search for it (with 4 vol) . He explain why he was so interesting in it b/c he want to answer the contemporary question so that people will be able to know Jesus.
- A professor for many yrs in
- He wrote hundreds of pages about what was the relationship between Jesus and John the Baptist/ Jesus and Pharisee, saducee and Roman authors…
JESUS SEMINAR: (very critical in the Catholic Church)
- Was founded in 1985 by Robert Funk, a professor at the
- What authentic in the historical Jesus, particularly on what he said.
- The method is try and isolate the earliest stand of Jesus tradition. They discuss and vote to see what sayings of Jesus are authentic.
- There are some critical comments in this approach. This Jesus Seminar is promoting the idea about determining what part of the NT is authentic and what is not.
- Can we go determine of what Jesus said and did not say. Here are some critics of Raymon Brown- an excellent Scripture Scholar:
1. Jesus Seminar, they evaluate the NT very skeptically (some thing that Jesus did not say 50% and what Jesus said 30%… )
2. This group is not credible b/c they come to Jesus research with a lot of black, grey, white… they are entire supernatural. Ex: they would say the bodily resurrection of Jesus did not happen. While on Sunday we profess “we believe in the resurrection….” The Catholic would not agree with them. They are very strong in adapting the dogmatic affirmation of the Catholic Church. Somehow they are much more than the Fundamentalism.
JOHN MEIER: (pg 16 Rausch)
He is a diocesan Priest from NY Diocese. One of the first class of Biblical scholar- the one truly explore the historical Jesus and he continue to search for it (with 4 vol: well done and phenomenon work) He explain why he was so interesting in this? b/c he wants to answer the temporary question about Jesus so that people will be able to understand and know Jesus. He is a professor for many yrs in
EVALUATIVE OBSERVATION ON HISTORICAL JESUS:
Why search for the historical Jesus?
Meier said:
- “ The Jesus of history is not and can’t be the object of xtn faith. A moment’s reflection will make clear why that must be so. For more than a millennium and a half, Xtn believe firmly in JC w/o having any clear idea of or access to the historical Jesus as we understood today, yet no one will deny the validity and strength of their faith…” (pg 13 Rausch)
- “ The question is “the Church could still not make the historical Jesus the object of its preaching and faith. The reason is obvious: whose historical Jesus would not be the object of faith?” (pg 31)
- For believer, the object of Xtn faith is a living person, JC, who fully entered into a true human existence on earth in the 1st century AD, but who now lives, risen and glorified forer in the Father’s present. Primarily, Xtn faith affirms and adheres to this person, indeed, incarnate, crucified and risen- the only secondary to ideas and affirmation about Him. In the realm of faith and theology, the “real Jesus” the only Jesus existing and living now, is true risen Lord, to whom access is given only through faith. “Fides Quaeren Intellectum” we can’t know the person of Jesus w/o beginning in faith” (pg 31)
- What then - ask the objections- is the usefulness of the historical Jesus to the people of faith? (pg 32)
+ It can be very useful if one asking about “Faith seeking understanding”. Our faith has to be well interrelated with the kinds of questions people are asking today. With the world and its experiences of revolution the way the world look scientifically.
+ Why then it is so important? (Senior answer the never ending question for Jesus
a. Factors of renewed interest:
- 1st quest: Biblical archaeology, anthropology and for more histories discovery.
- Biblical and non- Biblical text in a more careful reading…
- we realize that if we look at the temporally sociology, economic, cultural anthropology is also enlightening the context…
- So, these factors according to Senoir are contributing to the renewal interests a new look at what we can know about the historical Jesus.
b. A basic consensus:
What do Scripture scholars agree about the historical Jesus?
- He was a Palestine Jew who live in the 1st third century. He lived most of his adult life in
- Jesus was a devout Jew, an itinerant preacher of some popularity, use parables and stories effectively, was a charismatic healer. His message was the coming of the KDG.
- Jesus had adapted from the preaching of John Baptist
- Jesus’ mission was virtually confined to Jew and Jewish territory , he loved sinners and the maginalize…
- Jesus loved to go to feast (wedding at Canna) being with people is his opportunity for his ministry.
- Liberal interpretation of the law and open with sinners
- Jesus and his message came to the attention of the Roman authority…(public action in the temple…)
- All modern biblical scholars would agree on these minimal historical description of Jesus- begin to fill this with more details- the consensus begin to break down. Ex: which picture of Jesus is really true? we have nothing to describe the physical appearance of Jesus.
- (pg 21 Rausch) “Jesus was a humanperson and a Jew (Hebrew, NCW: non christian writing), of the tribe of
- that is the basis idea that we know about the historical Jesus
c. Division of the house (Seniors) the different image of the historical Jesus. (tu doc)
d. The coming of history and the gospel:
We come to realize that there is continuity and discontinuity:
- The basis historical is true.
- Beyond that, to understand it is a faith summary- the Gospel is a faith summary.
WHY THEN WE TALK ABOUT THIS QUESTION?
It is helpful to look at the reason that are given by Meir: (4 reasons) The historical Jesus, while not the object or essence of the faith, must be an integral part of the modern theology today. This question answers the quest: they serve our faith at least in 4 ways:
1. By looking at the details to the historical Jesus, it means we can’t reduce Jesus to some kinds of mystic symbols. Jesus is not an ideal personal invent for our own. We don’t make Jesus acc to the ideal we may have and can’t reduce him to some mystical figures. B/c we continue to anchor that Xtn faith is connected with specific event. It keeps our faith rooted in the history of the person of Jesus.
2. Historical Jesus makes sure that the pious xtn of a mystic or docetic don’t end up in a docetic bend. Ex: the early heresy in the church was docetism: it come from the Gk word: “dokei” meaning “see to appear as if”, we don’t fall into the area of docetism. For them, jesus only seem to be human, acted as human but in fact he is really Divine. He explained that most Xtn are actually “crypto- monophysitism” (Crypto = hidden and mono = one, phisis = picture) = basically Jesus is only one nature (basically divine but as if he was human)
3. We can’t domesticate Jesus (change him and make him for our vision, for a comfortable, respectable… we can’t shape Jesus acc to what we want
4. We can’t use Jesus for our own program: a political revolution Jesus, a social transformer… indeed, the usefulness of the historical Jesus to theology is that he ultimately eludes all our neat theological programs, he bring all of them into question by refusing to fit into the boxes we create for him >> properly understood the historical Jesus is a bulwark against the reduction of xtn faith in general and Christology in particular to “relevant” ideology of any stripe.
5. (Loewe: Historical Jesus, last page) the results of the historical Jesus research become significant for xtn faith. The historical Jesus research counter recurring temptations to docetism by presenting xtn with images of Jesus as fully human and historical situated.
The historical Jesus research helps the transformation of the Gospels>> deep appreciation for the humanity of Jesus… help others draw closer to Jesus. This approach is more effectively in proclamation of the Gospels.
MEIR: Why get to know the historical Jesus? Who is then the real Jesus?
Meir distinguishes between the real Jesus, the historical Jesus and the Theological Jesus:
- Too often people equate the historical Jesus with the real Jesus: if we could get only the historical Jesus, then we could have the real Jesus. But the Gospels are not biography or history.
- The historical Jesus is not the same thing as the real Jesus.
- For the believers, the real Jesus we encounter today, while certainly in continuity with that Jesus who lived on earth 200 yrs ago, is crucified, died and was risen. Jesus encounters through the mediation of the cmty of belief in Scripture, prayer, church teaching, faith and sacraments…this is the way we come to meet the real Jesus today.
- People say that one of the key to the 3rd quest is the rediscovering the Jewishness of Jesus and from there many other things will come in a greater and deeper…
HOW DOES FAITH FIT IN? (Meir pg 3)
No historical Jesus research existed until the 18th century but it is st very helpful as Meir said: “preaching to the ordinary people after the academic week brings him down to earth and struggle with how one gets Scripture across to people? how can we be better to communicate to claim that Jesus in the Gospel?”
ð Our approach is definitely is “FIDES QUAERES INTELLECTUM” one who has richer, deeper understanding, integrating the “2nd Naivete”
Ronald: THE QUEST FOR JESUS OF
No comments:
Post a Comment