| Forum Study Exercise
Bibliography |
INTRODUCTION
 | Distinction between the Jesus of History and
the Christ of Faith
 | Jesus was a Jew who lived in what is today the
nation of Israel but was, in his time, the Roman province of
Palestine. He was born about 4 BCE,
lived most of his life in the Galilee area of Palestine and was
executed by Roman authority in Jerusalem in Judea at about 30 CE.
Part I of the course presents what historians can know about this
man, his life, teaching, arrest, and death. |
| Christ is an English version of the
Greek word, christos for Anointed One; the meaning is the
same as Messiah, an English version of the Hebrew, meshiah.
The people who during his life came to believe he was the
promised messiah and who, after his death, believed he had
risen from the dead by the power of God where the first to have
faith that Jesus was the Christ. Thus began the Christian
Tradition, sometime after 30 CE. |
| Parts II-III of this course deal with the development of the Christian
Tradition by examining different images of the Christ of faith
in various eras and contexts.
 | Its beginnings as a Jewish movement in the First
Century CE. |
| Its spread among Gentiles
starting in the First Century, when most Jews did not accept
Jesus as the Christ; expanding as a sometimes
persecuted religious minority in the Roman Empire from the
Second to Fourth Centuries, when it was promoted as the
official religion of the Empire. Thereafter it grew throughout the Mediterranean world and
Europe, converting the barbarian invaders of the Roman
Empire. During the last two thousand years Christianity has
become the world's largest religious tradition. |
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| Faith and the Academic Study of Religion
| THEOLOGY & HISTORY: two different
disciplines and ways of knowing. Theology has been described as
faith reflecting on itself; History is the reconstruction of the
past on the basis of verifiable data. A historian may be a
believer but should not attempt to do the work of the
theologian.
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Theologians & Religious Teachers
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work on a basis of supernatural
beliefs |
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work as believers interested in
knowing about God, about how to behave, about ultimate
meaning of life |
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work within a community tradition
of shared faith, experience, and common
assumptions |
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read religious texts from within a
believing community |
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Historians
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work on the basis of the natural world, dealing with verifiable
events |
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deal with human actions that anyone can experience |
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use data that can be evaluated by anyone regardless of
personal belief |
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offer conclusions that are open to rational criticism |
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have no access to supernatural truths |
| are limited from answering ultimate questions or
adjudicating between different faiths & beliefs |
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read religious texts from outside the believing
community, even if they are believers themselves |
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Note the circles of faith and academic study, each representing
different realms. They may overlap for the historian who is also a
believer. But working as a scholar he/she must be limited by the rules
and techniques of the discipline of history. How that academic
discipline will govern our work in this course is described in the Advisory
Note on the Academic Study of Religion.
[Check The
Search: Jesus' Many Faces at the PBS site for
statements by scholars involved in the search for the historical Jesus.
See particularly Searching
for Jesus
SCRIPTURES AS
SOURCES
The
New Testament: Like the Bible as a whole, it is a library of writings
rather than one book.
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Material: Letters [Epistles], Gospels, Acts of
the Apostles, the Revelation of John |
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Based
on material in the oral tradition of Jesus' teaching, actions,
death and the experiences of his followers. |
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A
variety both of oral traditions and written materials |
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The
Canon, which established the
New Testament as we know it, was developed from the second to
the fourth centuries through controversies over what was
the authentic teaching of the apostles.
In 367 CE Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria in Egypt established the
list of the twenty-seven books in the Canon. |
The
Gospels [Be sure to to look at the PBS site, Origin
of the Gospels to supplement these notes and the
reading. Also look at Gospels
as Primary Sources, part of the web site of Christian History, a
magazine with an evangelical slant. We'll be discussing these web resources in the Forum. ]
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What
are the Gospels? |
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What
are their limits as sources on the life of Jesus? |
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Who
wrote them? |
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When
were they written? |
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What
are their similarities and differences? |
| Sources
of the Gospels
| Diagram
of the Two/Four Source Theory: Sees Mark and Quelle as the two
major sources used by Matthew and Luke along with material of
their own. Note in the diagram the schematic presentation of the
amount of material in each gospel. Compare
this theory with either Fredricksen or Ehrman. |
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MARK'S GOSPEL [Consider
The
Gospel of Mark at the PBS site, as you read this gospel]
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probably
the earliest, written c.66-70 CE by an anonymous Greek-speaking Gentile Christian, perhaps
in Syria, although there is a tradition it was written in Rome |
| presents
a very human Jesus as God's Anointed, the Messiah |
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full
of movement, action, conflict and a foreboding that leads to
suffering and death |
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Major
Theme: Jesus as the Suffering Son of God |
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Related
Themes
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Jesus'
Identity |
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What
does it mean to be his disciple? |
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The
Messianic Secret [See Fredricksen, pp. 44-52.] |
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Major
Divisions of the text (click Mark
for a more detailed outline
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I. chap.
1:1-13 Opening events of J's public life |
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II. chap.
1:14 to 9:50 J's
preaching, teaching, healing in Galilee |
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III. chap. 10 Journey to Jerusalem |
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IV. chaps. 11-15 The last week |
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V. chap. 16:1-8 Resurrection |
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