A book by Geza Vermes, author of "Jesus the Jew". JTJ was pretty good, but a little academic & heavy, I thought. I've downloaded AGJ and will see what I think, then post some of my thoughts here.
Anyone else read it? What do you think of the whole enterprise of reconstructing the historical Jesus?
The historical Jesus is basically lost in history and myth and that the various reconstructions are just fanciful academic mental masturbations that scholars do just to pad their CVs. Was he a Mediterranean cynic sage, an apocalyptic preacher, a rabbi, a magician, a revolutionary? Are the gospels (canonical and apocryphal) reliable in helping us reconstruct his life? Are the criteria used by the various scholars any real help in teasing out history from folklore?
ReplyDeleteBTW, I'm not a mythicist. I'm just frustrated with the quests so far.
Hi Danny; apologies for taking so long to reply. I agree with you wholeheartedly - there is probably no good way to unpick the "real" Jesus from the dregs that we have available. I do think Vermes is on to something by drawing parallels with Jewish preachers of the time, and what is striking is how *ordinary* Jesus appears when seen in this context. He doesn't stand out at all, and even if we rely purely on the gospels (which is essentially *everything* we know about the historical Jesus) with a hefty pinch of salt, I think we're left with a reasonably believable story of a preacher who makes a tilt at fulfilling the messianic prophecies, and it doesn't end well for him. I guess the challenge is to find out how much of contemporary Christianity is salvageable in this context, and indeed how much is even *worth* trying to salvage...
ReplyDeleteI'm a big Historical Jesus nut and have edited the Wikipedia page quite a bit. I have a bunch of short bits about historical Jesus on my web site (http://jonathantweet.com/jesus/), and I've recently started the blog Atheist Sunday School (http://jonathan-tweet.blogspot.com/). It's nice to find your blog and to know that I'm not alone.
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