Study for the week ending on Sunday, March 26, 2017 How Do We Know About Jesus? From The Meaning of Jesus by Marcus Borg and N.T. Wright Opening prayer (in unison- John 3:16 The Message) This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Seeing Jesus: Sources, Lenses and Method (Marcus Borg) The name Jesus has two referents. On the one hand, Jesus refers to a human figure of the past: Jesus of Nazareth, a Galilean Jew of the first century. On the other hand, in Christian theology, devotion, and worship, the name Jesus also refers to a divine figure of the present: the risen living Christ who is one with God. These two referents have been variously named in the history of Jesus scholarship. The first is commonly spoken of as Jesus of Nazareth or the Jesus of history or the historical Jesus. The second is the Christ of faith or the biblical Christ or the canonical Jesus. My own preferred terminology is the pre-easter Jesus and post- Easter Jesus. By the pre-easter Jesus, I mean of course Jesus during his historical lifetime: a Galilean Jewish peasant of the fist century, a flesh-and-blood figure of the past. This Jesus is dead and gone a claim that does not deny Easter but simply recognizes that the protoplasmic Jesus isn t around anymore. By the post-easter Jesus I mean what Jesus became after his death. More fully, I mean the Jesus of Christian tradition and experience. Both nouns, tradition and experience, are equally important. The former includes the Jesus of the developing Christian tradition in its pre-canonical, canonical, and ultimately creedal stages. The latter is the Jesus whom his followers (in the first century and in the centuries since) continued to experience after his death as a living, spiritual, and ultimately divine reality. As the Jesus of Christian experience, the post-easter Jesus is an experiential reality, not simply an article of belief.
Both the pre-easter and post-easter Jesus are the subject of this book. How they are related to each other will be treated in later chapters. For now, I want to emphasize the importance of making the distinction between the two. When we don t, we risk losing both. Knowing Jesus: Faith and History (N.T. Wright) What does it mean to know someone? Humans being what they are, this is a great mystery. It is, clearly, different from knowing abou them. When we know a person (as opposed to, say, knowing the height of the Eiffel Tower), we imply some kind of relationship, some mutual understanding. We are used to each other; we can anticipate how the other will react; we accurately assess their wishes, hopes, and fears. We could perhaps have arrived at the basic facts by careful detached study, but when we say that we know someone, we assume that this knowledge is the result of face-to-face encounter. When someone claims to know Jesus of Nazareth in this sense, they are making a claim about other things as well: the existence of a nonspatiotemporal world, the existence of Jesus within that world; the possibility of presently alive human beings having access to that world, and of this being actually true in their case. They are claiming, more particularly, to know one person in particular, a distinctive and recognizable person, within that world, and that this person is identified as Jesus. This knowledge is what many people, myself included, are referring to when we say that we know Jesus, by faith. The more I find out about Jesus historically, the more I find that my faith-knowledge of him is supported and filled out. These knowings are indivisible. I see why some people find themselves driven to distinguish the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith, but I do not think the early Christians made such a distinction, and I do not find the need to do so myself. This Jesus of whom I speak still comes to meet us, sometimes bidden, sometimes not, sometimes despite the locked doors of an enclosed epistemology, always recognizable by the mark of the nails. And he thereby raises most of the questions that the rest of this book will examine. The Confession of 1967 The one sufficient revelation of God is Jesus Christ, the Word of God incarnate, to whom the Holy Spirit bears unique and authoritative witness through the Holy Scriptures, which are received and obeyed as the word of God written. The Scriptures are not a witness among others, but the witness without parallel. The church has received the books of the Old and New Testaments as prophetic and apostolic testimony in which it
hears the word of God and by which its faith and obedience are nourished and regulated. The New Testament is the recorded testimony of apostles to the coming of the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, and the sending of the Holy Spirit to the Church. The Old Testament bears witness to God's faithfulness in his covenant with Israel and points the way to the fulfillment of his purpose in Christ. The Old Testament is indispensable to understanding the New, and is not itself fully understood without the New. The Bible is to be interpreted in the light of its witness to God's work of reconciliation in Christ. The Scriptures, given under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, are nevertheless the words of men, conditioned by the language, thought forms, and literary fashions of the places and times at which they were written. They reflect views of life, history, and the cosmos which were then current. The church, therefore, has an obligation to approach the Scriptures with literary and historical understanding. As God has spoken his word in diverse cultural situations, the church is confident that he will continue to speak through the Scriptures in a changing world and in every form of human culture. God's word is spoken to his church today where the Scriptures are faithfully preached and attentively read in dependence on the illumination of the Holy Spirit and with readiness to receive their truth and direction. The Practice of Reading Scripture (Allen Verhey) In learning to read Scripture as a practice of Christian community, Christians learn as well the good that belongs to reading Scripture, the good internal to that forms of activity. They learn, that is, to remember. They learn to remember not only as an intellectual exercise, not just as a mental process of recollection, not only as disinterested recall of historical facts. They learn to own a past as their own past in the continuing church, and to own it as constitutive of identity and determinative for discernment. And there are temptations to forgetfulness, ironically, in the sort of historical reading of Scripture that treats these writings simply as the (more or less reliable) record of a figure of the past whose life ended with his death. Then the memory of Jesus is merely a memory, an intellectual process of recollection, a disinterested reconstruction of some historical facts, not the memory that is constitutive of identity and community and determinative for discernment. In Christian community Scripture is read on the Lord s day, in celebration of resurrection, and in the confidence that the remembered Jesus lives. Forgetfulness threatens a loss of identify, but the remedy for forgetfulness is remembrance, and remembrance is served by reading Scripture.
Theology for the Laity (Jack Rogers) At the very practical level you have no doubt been involved, as I have, in many useless arguments. Often they root in a failure to distinguish between the central message of Scripture and the nature of its supporting material. I can remember a woman questioning me once in a Sunday school class. She insisted that we should prove that there could have been a fish big enough to swallow Jonah. I submit to you that this is not a question of the saving message of Scripture. Nor does it help us understand the particular message of the book of Jonah. It is a scientific question best settled by consulting Biblical experts on the literary genre, the cultural expectations, and the historical setting of that book. But notice how this question diverts attention from the real message of the prophet. How many people who are worked up over the big fish know what the book of Johan is about? Do they know that this book tells about a prejudiced preacher who refused to preach the gospel to people racially and nationally different from him? How our prejudice thwarts God s evangelism is very close to the heart of the Biblical message. Thank God, the book of Jonah testifies that God is gracious in spite of us. He will keep after us even when we resist him. Scientific theology is no cure for our resistance to the Holy Spirit. It can help clear up honest misunderstandings. Best of all, it continually points us to the heart of Scripture Christ and his salvation and helps us to avoid becoming untangled on the periphery. That kind of science conserves the gospel message but not all our old, uncritical ideas. That kind of theology is evangelical in freeing our faith to concentrate on the main issues. The Historical Reliability of John s Gospel (Craig L. Blomberg) Tellingly, archaeologists have even more confidence about having identified the pool of Siloam in Jerusalem than they do about the pool of Bethesda. Originally part of Hezekiah s tunnel (2 Kings 20:20; 2 Chr 32:30), Siloam was excavated in 1880, complete with an inscription enabling its identification. The Pastor s Right to Speak (William Barclay) Here at the very beginning of his letter John sets down his right to speak; and it consists in one thing--in personal experience of Christ (1 John 1:2-3). He says that he has heard Christ. Long ago Zedekiah had said to Jeremiah: "Is there any word from the Lord?" (Jeremiah 37:17). What men are interested in is not someone's opinions and guesses but a word from the Lord. It was said of one great preacher that first he listened to God and then he spoke to men; and it was said of John Brown of Haddington that, when he preached, he paused ever and again, as if listening for a voice. The true teacher is the man who has a message from Jesus Christ because he has heard his voice.
He says that he has seen Christ. It is told of Alexander Whyte, the great Scottish preacher, that someone once said to him, "You preached today as if you had come straight from the presence." And Whyte answered, "Perhaps I did." We cannot see Christ in the flesh as John did; but we can still see him with the eye of faith. "And, warm, sweet, tender, even yet A present help is he; And faith has still its Olivet, And love its Galilee." I John 1:1-4 We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life this life was revealed, and we have seen it and testify to it, and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us we declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. Hebrews 13:7-8 Remember your leaders, those who spoke the word of God to you; consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Ephesians 5:8-14 For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true. Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to mention what such people do secretly; but everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for everything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, Sleeper, awake! Rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you. John 9:1-41 As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God s works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man s eyes, saying to him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see. The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, Is this not the man who used to sit and beg? Some were saying, It is he. Others were saying, No, but it is someone like him. He kept saying, I am the man. But they kept asking him, Then how were your eyes opened? He answered, The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, Go to Siloam and wash. Then I went and washed and received my sight. They said to him, Where is he? He said, I do not know. They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see. Some of the Pharisees said, This man is not from God, for he does not observe the sabbath. But others said, How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs? And they were divided. So they said again to the blind man, What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened. He said, He is a prophet. The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see? 2His parents answered, We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself. His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, He is of age; ask him.
So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner. He answered, I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see. They said to him, What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes? He answered them, I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples? Then they reviled him, saying, You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from. The man answered, Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing. They answered him, You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us? And they drove him out. Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him, he said, Do you believe in the Son of Man? He answered, And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him. Jesus said to him, You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he. He said, Lord, I believe. And he worshiped him. Jesus said, I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind. Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, Surely we are not blind, are we? Jesus said to them, If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, We see, your sin remains. Journaling / Reflecting Borg talks about a pre-easter Jesus and a post-easter Jesus while Wright states, I see why some people find themselves driven to distinguish the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith, but I do not think the early Christians made such a distinction Which of these concepts most helps you to understand the selected scriptures?
Think about what you know about Jesus. How have you come to know this? Was there a personal experience which shaped your knowledge? Or does your knowledge come more from biblical study? William Barclay talked about the Scottish preacher to whom someone once said, "You preached today as if you had come straight from the presence." Have you ever had an experience like that? Barclay argues that, The true teacher is the man who has a message from Jesus Christ because he has heard his voice. How have you heard the voice of Jesus Christ? Jesus healing the blind man at Siloam can also be understood metaphorically that Jesus also heals a spiritual blindness. Have you ever felt spiritually blind in a situation? How did you resolve your blindness? Was its resolution more through your actions, or the action of something or someone else? Rogers talks about useless arguments and their causes (a failure to distinguish between the central message of Scripture and the nature of its supporting material). Have you ever been in a useless argument with someone? How did it end?