I am thrilled that there is yet another seminar seeking to discover the historical Jesus. The Jesus Project is on its way. April DeConick asked some provocative questions about it on her blog. Robert M. Price responded to her questions.
I am all for scholarship taking on tough issues! For more about the Jesus Project, you can go to its website. You won't find much there for now as they are still figuring out who they are!
I will, of course, keep you posted!
I don't think any scholarly project on the historical Jesus will come to any good. The whole purpose since the 19th century is to make sure that the historical Jesus will never be discovered. There is such an extreme fear that the historical Jesus will end or threaten Christianity — a fear which I believe is unfounded, but the fear is there nonetheless and prevents anyone from doing honest work.
ReplyDeleteWhat scholars should do is hold a conference examining themselves and their fears and prejudices. If they did that, they might get closer to the historical Jesus, but they are never going to do it.
To be really interested in the historical Jesus means to be interested in the details of history and everyone avoids that. No one asks, for example, what does a high priest ripping his robe in 1st century Judaism really mean? What examples does Josephus give of this? What were the duties of a retired high priest (such as Annas who questions Jesus in John 18)? No one cares about any of these things.
The details of the NT also get ignored. How many people notice that Paul says at Acts 13:28 that there was no Jewish death penalty against Jesus and that this is backed up by both Luke and John which have no Jewish death penalty? So many more clues in the NT support this, but no one wants to know. What scholars want is to keep repeating their theology that Jesus was done in by Jewish enemies. They just keep erasing all the clues that contradict this. That's why we will never have genuine historical study for many generations to come.
Leon Zitzer
Leon,
ReplyDeleteWhat are you saying? Have you written something? I would me more than happy to read your stuff.