| Section |
Marcus J. Borg |
W. Tom Wright |
| 1. What do we know of Jesus? |
How we see Jesus is to a large extent the
product of the lenses through which we see
him. |
We know about Jesus in two ways: history
and faith. People regularly try to eliminate
one on the basis of the other, dismissing
combinations as compromise. |
1. Does the knowledge of modern biblical
scholarship help advance our faith or diminish
it?
2. How does understanding the particular
society of Jesus time make any difference
to our faith? |
| 2. What did Jesus do and teach? |
Jesus was a Jewish mystic and a Christian
Messiah, a healer and exorcist, a wisdom
teacher, a social prophet, a movement initiator |
Jesus was a first-century Jewish prophet
announcing and inaugurating the kingdom of
God, summoning others to join him, warning
of the consequences if they did not. |
3. Is is likely that Jesus said all that
was reported of him? What difference does
it make whether he did or not?
4. What understanding did Jesus himself have
about his purpose? How could he come to it?
Was he self-aware? |
| 3. The death of Jesus. |
Jesus died as a martyr, not as a victim.
A martyr is killed because he or she stands
for something. Jesus was killed because he
stood against the kingdoms of this world
and for an alternative social vision grounded
in the kingdom of God. ... Good Friday has
more than a political meaning. But it does
not have less than a political meaning. |
The cross of Jesus is thus the Christian
symbol par excellence, forming the focal
point of Christian spirituality, Christian
praying, Christian believing, and Christian
action. And the manifold ways in which it
is and does allthis can trace their roots
legitimately to the mind and intention, to
the action and passion, of Jesus himself.
|
5. Who killed Jesus? Romans? Jews? Or ourselves
by our sin? What difference is there in this?
6. Did Jesus have to die to get his point
across? Would we have Christianity if he
had died elsewise? |
| 4. God raised Jesus from the Dead. |
For me, the historical ground of Easter is
very simple: the followers of Jesus, both
then and now, continued to experience Jesus
as a living reality after his death. ...
a figure of the present, not simply a memory
from the past. |
Once you allow that something remarkable
happened to his body that morning, all the
other data fall into place with astonishing
ease. Once you insist that nothing so outlandish
happened, you are driven to ever more complex
and fantastic hypotheses to explain the data. |
7. Christianity has differed from other religions
in respect of resurrection. What difference
does that make?
8. Were the passion stories historical, or
constructs by the early church to explain
their faith in Jesus? |
| 5. Was Jesus God? |
I find the christological language of the
New Testament much more compelling when I
hear it as the testimony of the community
rather than as the self-proclamation of a
Galilean Jewish peasant. ... To be Christian is to affirm, "Here
in Jesus, I see more clearly than anywhere
else what God is like." |
I believe in the god I see revealed in Jesus
of Nazareth. ... I do not think Jesus "knew
he was God" ... he believed he had to
do and be, for Israel and the world, that
which according to scripture only YHWH himself
could do and be. |
9. Does pre-Easter and post-Easter differentiation
of Jesus help our understanding?
10. What's the fuss about? Isn't Jesus interchangeable
with God? |
| 6. The birth of Jesus. |
...not a factual claim dependent upon a biological
miracle, but a way of seeing Jesus that immediately
involves seeing him as the decisive disclosure
of God. ... With beauty and power, these
symbolic narratives express central early
Christian convictions about the significance
of Jesus. |
The problem is that miracle, as used in these
controversies, is not a biblical category.
The God of the Bible is not a normally absent
God who sometimes intervenes. This God is
always present and active, often surprisingly
so. ... I hold open my historical judgement
and say: if that's what God deemed appropriate,
who am I to object? |
11. How are the birth of Jesus and the death
of Jesus understood by these two perspectives?
12. How does understanding the meaning of
myth and myth archetype enhance our faith? |
| 7. He will come again in glory. |
Christ comes again and again and again, and
in many ways. In a symbolic and spiritual
sense, the second coming of Christ is about
the coming of the Christ who is already here. |
It is time that the old scholars' myth of
"the delay of the parousia" was
given a decent burial. Metaphorically, of
course. |
13 .Is it possible and meaningful to be a
Christian without a literal interpretation
of the words of the Bible?
14. Does the idea of the coming end of the
world continue to have purpose for the church
today? |
| 8. Jesus and the Christian life. |
... being Christian is not about believing,
but about a relationship with the God who
is sacramentally mediated to us through the
Christian tradition in a comprehensive sense
of the word: the Bible, the gospels, Jesus
himself, and the worship and practices of
our life together in Christian community. |
Glad, rich worship of the God revealed in
Jesus invites outsiders to come in, welcomes
them, noursihes them, and challenges them.
... Books about Jesus can be an aid toward
worship, a guide in mission. But if it really
is Jesus we are talking about, worship and
mission are more important even than books. |
15. How can the scholars maintain a valid
faith when it seems so different from ordinarily
considered Christian belief?
16. How are we better equipped now to tell
the Jesus story by hearing Borg and Wright? |
