The historical Jesus debate, as we have seen, has three (or four) phases: the old quest (Reimarus to Schweitzer), the no quest of Bultmann and the new quest following Bultmann, and then what Tom Wright dubbed the "third quest" of the present day, though there are plenty of "new" questers still around. What is the 3d Quest?
First, it is concerned with a more positive appropriation of the Gospels and a less skeptical approach to them.
Blogs
Press Release on Albania Manuscripts
By Dan Wallace - Posted on March 27th, 2008
Attached is the press release about the manuscripts discovered and photographed in Albania this past summer. Also, WFAA News, the Dallas ABC affiliate, is scheduled to air a short story on these manuscripts and the work of the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts on Thursday, March 27, 2008.
Here's the Christianity Today Q&A interview.
Rudolf Karl Bultmann
By Scot McKnight - Posted on March 27th, 2008
Tagged: Bultmann
More people say bad things about Bultmann than who have read him (1884-1976). Bultmann was escorted into the theological world in the day of Schweitzer's famous Quest. Bultmann, a faithful church-going organist-playing son of the Lutheran church, knew that one could jettison it all or dig under and behind the historical to find the existential and demythologized true faith. Marburg University, so I've been told, could not have found lecture halls big enough for Bultmann's lectures in his glory days.
Albert Schweitzer
By Scot McKnight - Posted on March 26th, 2008
Tagged: Albert Schweitzer
Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965), famous for being a missionary doctor in Africa (Out of My Life) and for his "reverence for life," had three earned doctorates -- music, theology, and medicine -- and it was his second one that got him in trouble with the religious authorities. When he sniffed the wind of opposition to his free-thinking about Jesus, he chose to spend his life in Africa in obscurity as he worked out his own ideas.
Radical Apocalyptic Jesus
By Scot McKnight - Posted on March 25th, 2008
Tagged: Hermann Samuel Reimarus
• Jesus
Go to your local Barnes and Noble or Borders or any bookshop of fine taste and you will find a section on Jesus, and the books about Jesus make one subtle or not-so-subtle promise: the book will reveal who the real Jesus was and what the real Jesus was like. These books belong to what scholars call the “quest for the historical Jesus,” and most know that this Jesus is not the Jesus Christ of Christian faith but someone less, someone more human, someone far more Jewish, and someone many like to shove in the face of orthodox Christians who believe Jesus was Son of God.
Every now and then ...
By Scot McKnight - Posted on March 23rd, 2008
... a book comes along and you make a decision about its importance. This book, you decide, ends the need for a dozen or so other books on your shelves. You go to your shelf, pick up those books, put them in your "To Sell" (or "To Give Away") stack, and put that one book on your shelf that replace the others. Yes, I've got such a book for you:
Resurrection!
By Klyne Snodgrass - Posted on March 21st, 2008
Many Christians have little idea of the importance of the resurrection, but it is the only reason this faith exists. I doubt that we would ever have even heard of Jesus of Nazareth were it not for the resurrection. We can speak of new life in Christ only because of the resurrection. God is the God who creates life in the midst of death. He did it for Jesus, he can do it for the death we currently live, and, because he raised Jesus, Christians believe God will raise them from death when the kingdom comes in its fullness. God is the living God, not only because he is real, but because God alone is immortal, has life in himself, and gives life.
Asking Jesus into your heart?
By Klyne Snodgrass - Posted on March 19th, 2008
How did language that is not biblical become the most important language for doing evangelism? Jesus never even comes close to saying, "Invite me into your heart so you can go to heaven." Nor does the rest of the New Testament. (Concerning the misguided focus on going to heaven, see my blog for March 17.) If people really knew what it meant for Christ to take over the controlling center of their being, that would be one thing, but they do not. Jesus does not seek people to make a decision, but people who become disciples, who follow him, and who are attached to him.
Going to Heaven?
By Klyne Snodgrass - Posted on March 17th, 2008
Perhaps no subject is as distorted—or so central—to Christianity as eschatology. Very weird notions about life after death, heaven, and hell abound among Christians and have seeped into the thinking of many in our society and become even more distorted. The side bar on this
The Original Palm Sunday: A Non-Triumphal Entry
By Craig Blomberg - Posted on March 15th, 2008
Tomorrow Christian churches all over the world will celebrate Palm Sunday, commemorating Jesus' entrance into Jerusalem five days before his death, riding on a donkey and surrounded by throngs of well-wishers acclaiming his arrival like that of a king. The event has come to be known as Jesus' triumphal entry. But does it deserve that label?
Recent comments
20 weeks 3 days ago
21 weeks 23 hours ago
21 weeks 2 days ago
21 weeks 2 days ago
23 weeks 3 days ago
23 weeks 4 days ago
24 weeks 3 days ago
25 weeks 1 day ago
25 weeks 1 day ago
25 weeks 3 days ago