I’m still in the introduction to N T Wright’s Jesus and the Victory of God (ok, I’m reading this excellent book for the second time!).
In his chapter on the ‘Third Quest’ Wright offers five, or six, questions that have emerged from this ‘Third Quest’ and are worthy of being answered.
1. How does Jesus fit into Judaism?
2. What were Jesus’ aims?
3. Why did Jesus die?
4. How and why did the early Church begin?
5. Why are the Gospels the way they are?
Clearly these questions belong together. It is possible to offer an answer to one without addressing the others, but any such answer will necessarily have implications for the other four.
These questions cannot be answered either by theology or by history alone, but require a combination of history and theology to provide any reasonable answer.
In his chapter on the ‘Third Quest’ Wright offers five, or six, questions that have emerged from this ‘Third Quest’ and are worthy of being answered.
1. How does Jesus fit into Judaism?
2. What were Jesus’ aims?
3. Why did Jesus die?
4. How and why did the early Church begin?
5. Why are the Gospels the way they are?
Clearly these questions belong together. It is possible to offer an answer to one without addressing the others, but any such answer will necessarily have implications for the other four.
These questions cannot be answered either by theology or by history alone, but require a combination of history and theology to provide any reasonable answer.
The historical fixed points are:
1. Second Temple Judaism
2. About 100 ad the existence of a vibrant and growing Christian Church.
Between these two points we have the life and death of Jesus, the beginnings and expansion of the early Church and the writing of the Gospels. N T Wright is correct to challenge us that any account of Jesus must address all of these points.
The rejection of history as important in the study of Jesus has been made in a number of ways. Amongst others Bultmann rejected the Jesus of history as compromising the Christ of faith. One should encounter Jesus afresh in the existential moment of encounter and there is no need for a Jesus of history. A certain type of piety also rejects the Jesus of history, this is done for faith, or as it is claimed to promote faith, we approach the Gospels, and other New Testament writings with faith and when challenged by history retreat into a form of faith which rejects all need for evidence from history.
Both of these forms of rejecting history are themselves to be rejected.
Our Christian faith rests upon the history of God’s work of Salvation in and through Jesus Christ his Son, who is this Jesus of history. This Jesus must recognisably be located within second Temple Judaism and there must be in his life and death something of such significance as to explain the growth and expansion of the Church within just a few decades of his death.
The possible sixth question is, ‘So what?’ Why after all these years are we still bothering with Jesus? Why is it we can leave him alone and carry on without him? What difference does a historical account of Jesus, his life and death make? Or, what difference would an historical account that disproved the Gospels historical claims make? These are questions that thinking disciples of the Lord Jesus cannot fail to address.
4 comments:
Why were early Christian converts in Corinth scoffing at the very thought of their god choosing to raise corpses?
Why did Paul tell them that Jesus became a life-giving spirit, and that the earthly body is 'destroyed'?
Why does Paul teach on the nature of the resurrected body and produce not one iota of eyewitness testimony to the effect that resurrected bodies had flesh, bones, wounds and could eat?
Thanks for your comments Steven.
N T Wright's book 'The Resurrection of the Son of God' answers in detail all of your questions from a well respected historical position.
The implication of verses like 1 Cor 15:12 is that some in the church in Corinth were teaching that there was no resurrection of the dead, and verse 35 asking questions about the nature of the resurrection body. I think this question and your second one are very closely related.
In context 1 Cor 15 is continuing to answer the question from 12:1 'what does it mean to be spiritual?' A popular contemporary Greek idea was that to be spiritual involved being set free from the body, free for all that was material. This is not what the bible teaches about being spiritual and Paul's responses to the Corinthians about the resurrection are of one piece with the consistent teaching of Scripture on the spiritual life.
The distinction which Paul uses between a natural body and a spiritual body is not the distinctin between a physical body and a non-physical body, or a disembodied spirit.
The point of 1 Cor 15:42-44 is not that a body is destroyed and a spirit resurrected, but that one kind of body is buried and destroyed and a different kind of body is resurrected. The body we presently bear is suited for life on this world, the resurrected body is suited for life in the presence of God. In both conditions there is a body, there is continuity and discontinuity between the two.
On your final point, Paul's own eyeiwtness testimony did not involve the risen Lord Jesus eating and drinking. The eyewitness testimony of those who had been with the risen Lord Jesus was well known in the church, some were still alive and could be visited to check up on their testimony, 1 Cor 15:6. Quite simply the eyewitness testimony to the resurrection of the body of the Lord Jesus was not at issue so Paul did not write of it.
Thank you for your reply.
'The point of 1 Cor 15:42-44 is not that a body is destroyed and a spirit resurrected, but that one kind of body is buried and destroyed and a different kind of body is resurrected. '
No, a different body is resurrected, and this different body is a different kind of body - not made of earthly materials like flesh and bone.
The earthly body is destroyed.
2 Corinthians 5 'For we know that if our earthly dwelling, a tent, should be destroyed, we have a building from God, a dwelling not made with hands'
Which part of 'destroyed' is Wright having problems with?
Paul is clear that Jesus became a life-giving spirit, and that he expects all Christians to become life-giving spirits.
'The eyewitness testimony of those who had been with the risen Lord Jesus was well known in the church, some were still alive and could be visited to check up on their testimony...'
It wasn't well known. That is why Christian converts were scoffing at the idea of their god choosing to raise corpses.
It is why Paul cannot find any eyewitness testimony to use when talking about the nature of the resurrected body.
It is why Paul says stomach and food will be destroyed by God, although the resurrected Jesus is alleged to have eaten.
'The distinction which Paul uses between a natural body and a spiritual body is not the distinctin between a physical body and a non-physical body, or a disembodied spirit.'
The distinction is between the material that earthly things are made of, and the material that heavenly things are made of.
The Christian converts Paul was writing to knew that their Jesus was still alive, but scoffed at the idea of resurrection for themselves presumably because they had never heard of corpses rising. (No problem for Jesus, a god, to live after his body died)
Paul calls them fools for discussing how corpses could return, and trashes their idea that resurrected beings are made out of the dust that corpses become.
'The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven. I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God....'
I have a debate on the resurrection at Resurrection Debate
It is open to all comers.
Especially if they try to use Wright's book.
Wright just hashes up Paul's metaphors, to the extent that Wright tries to claim that when we change clothes, this is like having 'a new and larger suit of clothes to be put on over the existing ones'.
I guess Wright always wears one jacket on top of a smaller one...
Let us hope Thomas did not put his hand too far into the side of Jesus and touch the corpse that was underneath the new 'clothes' that the old body of Jesus was wearing.
An interesting question for Wright is what sort of body Moses had when he returned from the dead to appear at the Transfiguration - a natural body or a spiritual body?
Rather amazingly, Wright just never discusses how Moses managed to return from the dead in his 'Resurrection' book.
Just how could Christian converts scoff at the idea of resurrection if stories were circulating of Moses (of all people) returning from the dead.
And how can Wright produce a scholarly work about belief in the afterlife, and not discuss whether Moses was a spirit or not a spirit at the Transfiguration?
And how can Wright just leave out of his book, 1 Peter saying 'All flesh is grass',when the Pater of Acts is made to say that some flesh did not see corruption?
Wright's book is useless against sceptics....
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