Jesus Studies: Some Random Comments.


1.. Ordinary folks - including most clergy - don't understand sophisticated liberal theologians, like those who belong to the 'Jesus Seminar'. Marcus Borg's notion of 'history metaphorized', for example, leaves most clergy scratching their heads (and Borg is at the moderate end of the JS). And there's the problem of such notions undermining the faith of ordinary Christians, who depend on the veracity of biblical history to provide a foundation for their theological beliefs.

2.. When three scholars - like N T Wright, Marcus Borg, and James Dunn - have equally impeccable academic credentials and Christian commitment, and study the same texts but come to divergent opinions, what are the rest of us to do? What we usually do is align our thinking with the one who operates from the same presuppositions we do (like, for example, 'if it seems to be miraculous it probably didn't actually happen').

3.. Evangelical scholars like Leon Morris, and John Stott (The Incomparable Christ) haven't got much time for source/form/redaction criticism in their writings, for two reasons: ordinary folks don't understand much of it anyway, and it's safer to take the text at face value. I remember talking with Dr Morris about the Deity of Christ, and he responded: 'So who was he - Hamlet or the Prince of Denmark?'

4.. A lot of modern 'creative' scholarship (to use the most benign word for it) begins with a mind alienated from the established Church and its historic doctrines. Such alienation (and I know a couple of dozen people who fit this category, but with differing stories) leads them from 'The Church has abused/ignored/whatever me' to 'What the Church historically stands for must be ignorant/wrong etc.' so babies get tossed out with bathwater.

5.. All that said, I'd encourage the conservatives to read a little into the Jesus scholarship around today - fascinating. And I'd encourage the liberals to develop a faith which inhabits 'simplicity the other side of complexity'. For all of us 'If you're going to walk on water, you've got to get out of the boat!' * Shalom! Rowland Croucher * * http://jmm.aaa.net.au/ * (14900+ articles, 3200 clean jokes/stories)

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