Word: faithfully
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...that, by inference, most Christians' picture of Christ may be radically misguided. That their Jesus, in fact, "is an imaginative theological construct, into which have been woven traces of that enigmatic sage from Nazareth--traces that cry out for recognition and liberation from the firm grip of those whose faith overpowered their memories...
...most basic elements of his life, let alone of the miracles--then on what is Christian belief based? And if believers insist on believing anyway, then whose example should they follow? Every new book, every new theory seems to wear away some long-cherished relic in this battle between faith and knowledge. Those who would come to Jesus' rescue must ask, Is it too late? Can that which has been rejected be restored...
...dead than question his status as the risen Messiah. But Martin Luther, in pioneering Protestantism, stressed that every Christian could and should establish his own relationship with Christ by the reading of Scripture. And from the 17th century on, Western civilization, which had previously understood itself according to faith, found a new way to apprehend the world: the precise calibration and cool skepticism of scientific rationalism. In time, scholars began to subject Jesus to the tools of historical and literary analysis...
...Crucifixion. Which was most accurate? Even Luther had a favorite Gospel (John) and appeared to regard the rest as less essential. And starting with the 1835 critique The Life of Jesus by David Friedrich Strauss, apostles of the new scientific method raised additional questions with increasing urgency: Might faith have caused the writers of all four Gospels to embellish on actual fact? Did the politics of the early church cause them to edit or add to Jesus' story? Which parts of the New Testament were likely to be straight reportage rather than pious mythmaking...
...field, threw up his hands: he called for a halt to inquiries regarding the Jesus of history. So unreliable were the Gospel accounts that "we can now know almost nothing concerning the life and personality of Jesus." He advised good Christian scholars to concentrate on the Jesus of faith. But, as it turns out, they didn...