Word: jesus
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...face of it, he is Johnson's staunchest ally. Wright knows and likes Crossan--the two go drinking after their debates--but he calls his friend's latest book "radically wrong in almost every second thing it says." His own 40-page critique of the Jesus Seminar's work echoes Johnson's point regarding oral cultures and similarly questions the Seminar's snub of Jesus' apocalyptic, eschatological side. Most important, he concurs that it is a mistake to "carve up" the New Testament and analyze the pieces separately. Wright believes the Gospels are more supportive than subversive of one another...
...Jesus cannot be reduced to a wordsmith in the marketplace, spinning little aphorisms and telling funny stories," he announces. Building on previous work by the historian E.P. Sanders stressing Jesus' place within 1st century Judaism, Wright concludes that the Gospels provide sufficient evidence to deduce not just a wandering sage who was crucified for reasons unclear, but a prophet who announced a coming Kingdom of God and died for it; and that this framework in turn clarifies "dozens of examples where the details fall into place." Specifically, his book will state that Jesus' trial, the fact that he claimed...
...saying is, 'We can just believe the Bible and don't need to worry about it.' But it plays right into the hands of the Seminar, and there's a huge price to be paid for that. The challenge of the Enlightenment has always been, 'Oh, we know what Jesus was, and it shows Christianity was a mistake.' I'm trying to say, It's hard work, but if you stick with the historical enterprise to the bitter end, not only can you preach from it, but it's more powerful than what the Fundamentalists or the liberal reductionists offer...
Most combatants in the historical Jesus wars assume that at least one major American religious group is sitting them out. Traditionally, the Evangelical position on the New Testament was: It happened, and that's that. But the anthology Jesus Under Fire, for which Blomberg wrote a chapter, represents academic Evangelicalism's commitment to greater theological engagement and subtlety. He sketches out a position that, at least by its wording, may be easier for many Americans to accept than the statements by some of the topic's higher-profile jousters...
...that the Sermon on the Mount might have gone on longer than the Gospels suggest, and also to credit the differences among Matthew, Mark, Luke and John to "omissions and paraphrases" that were a natural part of an oral culture. Once that is settled, he believes the picture of Jesus that they present is fundamentally accurate...