Two views of Jesus
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| 🇬🇧 | 🇬🇧 |
| What is a worldview? | A set of assumptions that uses story and symbols to answer basic questions such as who are we? Or what is wrong with the world? |
| What does Wright believe writing off the Christian beliefs of Jesus is? | Uncritically accepting an enlightenment view of the world |
| What does Wright encourage us to do? | Start to examine our worldview by answering questions such as "who are we?", "why are we here?" |
| What else is the enlightenment worldview known as? | Naive realism |
| What is the enlightenment world view? | A European intellectual movement emphasising reason over religious revelation and the superstition as the basis of knowledge |
| What is the worldview we find in the New Testament? | A worldview where history, faith, politics and spirituality are not separated from one another. |
| What does phenomenalism mean? | The doctrine that human knowledge is confined to or founded on the realities or appearances presented to the senses. |
| What are one of the reasons why we should question this world view? | The reaction of phenomenalism |
| What is critical realism? | Things can be known outside of ourselves, though this knowledge is always filtered by our own point of view |
| What does the new testament present? | Presents a worldview which is compelling: Jesus presents history as having meaning and purpose. |
| What did Jesus do according to Wright? | Jesus reinterpreted ‘Messiah’ in a striking way to include a rejection of violence and the theme of a sacrificial death |
| How do we know Jesus was significant according to Wright? | The fact that the Jesus movement survived is itself evidence of the truth of Christian belief since movements of other ‘failed messiahs’ disbanded. |
| What type of Messiah was Jesus? | A messiah who gave his life |
| A Key quote from Wright? | “History, then, prevents faith from becoming fantasy. Faith prevents history becoming mere antiquarianism” |
| What was Crossan sceptical of? | Orthodox Christian accounts of Jesus which present Jesus in terms of an all-powerful Son of God removed from the concerns of the world. |
| What else is Crossan sceptical of? | Taking the Gospels at face value as they reached their final form only after 30 years from the death of Jesus |
| How does Crossan try to construct historically accurate views of Jesus? | Crossan tries to locate early traditions (30-60CE) from within the Gospels, such as ‘Q’, the shared material between Matthew and Luke, the Gospel of Thomas and other non-canonical writings |
| What do these sources present according to Crossan? | Do not present Jesus as having a miraculous birth or a resurrection, but as a teacher of wisdom with an emphasis on social justice. |
| How was Jesus a social revolutionary? | Who tried to build a community without gender or class distinctions (his open table fellowship, women in leadership, and welcoming outcasts). (Matthew 11:19) |
| What did Crossan think of miraculous healings? | The so-called ‘miracles of healing’ were really social healings, including those cast out from the centre of society. |
| Who should Jesus be compared to? | Graeco-Roman cynics who were itinerant teachers |
| What is Crossan's definition of Jesus? | ‘Mediterranean Jewish Peasant’ |
| What is the apocryphal gospels? | A number of writings by early Christians that give account of Jesus and his teachings but are non canonical |
| Why were the apocrypha not included in the bible? | They were considered useful but not divinely inspired |
| From which point must we start our historical study of Jesus? | Jesus was a Jewish prophet announcing the kingdom of God |
| What view did Jesus share? | One of eschatological expectation. The Jews were the chosen people of God and that history was going somewhere. |
| What three areas did cross an use to find this historical Jesus? | Cross cultural anthropology, Jewish and Greco Roman history and literary and textual studies of the New Testament |
| What is Cross cultural anthropology? | What we know about ancient Mediterranean culture, agrarian society, gender relations and colonialisms. This gives meaning to Crossan’s description of of Jesus as Mediterranean |
| What is Jewish and Greco Roman history? | The land where Jesus lived was a colony of the Roman Empire and there are many sources that can be used to find out what life under Roman rule would’ve been like. This gives meaning to Crossan’s interpretation of Jesus as a peasant |
| What is literary and textual studies of the New Testament? | Using the books outside of the canonical New Testament to inform us about Jesus’ life. This gives meaning to Crossan’s interpretation of Jesus as Jewish |
| What is an attestation? | A piece of evidence presented in support of a claim |
| Key quote from Crossan? | “I understand the virginal conception of Jesus to be a confessional statement about Jesus’ status and not a biological statement about Mary’s body” |
| What is Q? | Name is given to sayings common in both Matthew and Luke but not in Mark which some scholars believe was a source these gospel writers used |
| What is the significance of the gospel of Thomas? | It’s a collection of sayings of Jesus without the birth or resurrection narratives and is dated to a lot earlier than some of the other books |
| How did Crossan picture Jesus? | As a social revolutionary, he advocated a kingdom lifestyle, he served at an open table, he performed miracles of social healing |
| What does Constantinian Christianity have to do with the original Jesus movement | They experienced the power of Jesus and didn’t need a physical resurrection. However some of his followers strayed far from what Jesus originally wanted by turning his open table meals into a closed table Eucharist and started having clear leaders in the church and figures of authority |
| What arguments suggest that critical realism is valuable in understanding Jesus? | It shows that there is no binary choice between objective facts and no facts at all. It enables us to consider evidence more critically to hopefully reach the truth. It recognises that not everyone will interpret evidence in the same way. Jesus is more than just a historical figure wrapped up in Superstition |
| What arguments suggest that critical realism has no value in understanding Jesus? | It is unnecessary, the historical Jesus can be reconstructed using other disciplines. Science and religion have had dialogue before, so a religious world view must be abandoned. Why accept one world view as more valid than any other in understanding Jesus? Science and sense experience prevail in telling us the truth about the world |
| What arguments suggest that critical realism has some value in understanding Jesus? | It enables people to find meaning within the historical accounts that affect their lives. It can confirm pre-existent faith but is unconvincing for the non-believer. There is more to be known than just sense experience alone. We can know that world views differ but not what the New Testament one was. |
| What are arguments that suggest the apocryphal gospels are valid? | They add to our knowledge of the cultural context of Jesus life. They were rejected because they didn't affirm the agenda of the early church. The four gospels are just as prone to difficulties as the apocryphal gospels. The structure of Thomas and Q appear like early Christian lists of Jesus' sayings. |
| What are arguments that suggest apocryphal gospels are not valid? | There is little direct evidence for an early date for gospels like Thomas. They were rejected by the church as heretical or unreliable. Such literature is not considered to be God's word and is not authoritative. The four gospels we have offer a more consistent approach and are worthier of study |
| What are some arguments that suggest the apocryphal gospels offer some validity? | They contain earlier layers or versions in the same way as other gospels. They may offer some insight, but they are mostly fragments, not coherent documents. If treated with caution over dating, then they may contain some insight. Thomas is more convincing due to its lack of supernatural events. |