Word: sage
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...variation on the sage theme comes from Claremont Scholar Burton Mack, who sees Jesus as a "rather normal cynic-type figure," using the term not in the modern sense but referring to a particular school of ancient Greek philosophers, Diogenes among them, who advocated virtue and self-control. Like them, he made ample use of a biting sense of humor ("Let the dead bury their dead"). "Jesus wasn't reforming Judaism," Mack insists. "He was just taking up a Hellenistic kind of social criticism...
This version of the Nazarene, though clearly an empathic type, "is not a comforting figure," observes Robert Funk, founder of the Jesus Seminar and former administrator of the Society of Biblical Literature. "He's a troublemaker." Marcus Borg of Oregon State University concurs that this "subversive sage" was, like Socrates, out "to undermine the safe assumptions of conventional wisdom." That he chose to break bread with the lepers and outcasts of his day was a remarkable rejection of established Jewish mores, says Borg. Such scholars perceive a worldly revolutionary at work in the man who insisted, "The last will...
...stark contrast to the worldly reformer and sage is the notion of Jesus as a stern prophet who predicted the coming judgment of God. This Jesus, unlike the more secular versions, had a keen sense of his mission and knew that his death would fulfill it. He was clearly influenced by John the Baptist's preaching of repentance and perhaps by the apocalyptic warnings of the Essenes, the Jewish sect that produced the Dead Sea Scrolls...
...broad spectrum of scholars see no compelling intellectual reason to reject large portions of the Gospels, and find new inspiration in the lessons of Jewish studies and archaeology. For them, no single image of Jesus will do. These thinkers see Jesus as both apocalyptic prophet and reforming sage, as purifier of Judaism and builder of a new order. Advocates range from hard-line Fundamentalists and moderate Evangelicals, who all along have deemed the Gospels historically trustworthy, to moderate liberals who use higher criticism but have become skeptical about skepticism...
...search for the Jesus of history have any relevance for believers? Some thinkers, like Bultmann before them, are content to distinguish between a Christ of faith, who is knowable, and a historical Jesus, who is not. Other liberals, however, are searching fervently for a real-life Jesus, whether sage or prophet, to fill what they see as an urgent need for spiritual nourishment and a renewed impetus for social reform. "Jesus may be one of the finest persons who ever lived, but the average person doesn't have any access to him," says Robinson of Claremont. He believes that Christianity...