Introducing Jesus E-Book

Anthony O'Hear

• Herausgeber: Icon Books
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Serie: Graphic Guides
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Seitenzahl: 75

Beschreibung

Christianity depends on the belief that the Jesus of history is identical with the Christ of faith, and that God in the person of Jesus intervened finally and decisively in human history. But is the historical Jesus the same as the Christian Saviour? And how did an obscure provincial religion based on the paradox of a crucified saviour conquer the Roman Empire and outlive it? Introducing Jesus - A GRAPHIC GUIDE confronts the enigmas. It sets Jesus in the perspective of his time - within Judaism and its expectations of a Messiah, in the atmosphere of Greek philosophy and the Roman deification of emperors. It traces the development of Christianity from St. Paul and the Romanization of the Church, to modern liberation theology. This book is a lucid and exciting investigation that will appeal to all readers, whether Christian or not.

Leseprobe

Published by Icon Books Ltd, Omnibus Business Centre, 39–41 North Road, London N7 9DP Email: [email protected]

ISBN: 978-178578-013-4

Text copyright © 2012 Icon Books Ltd

Illustrations copyright © 2012 Icon Books Ltd

The author and illustrator has asserted their moral rights

Originating editor: Richard Appignanesi

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

The Nicene Creed

What is the Nicene Creed?

Jesus of Nazareth

The Evidence that Jesus Existed

Jesus of History

Chapter and Verse

Fact, Fiction or Drama Documentary?

Judaism at the time of Jesus

Old Testament Judaism

A Messiah for the Rebels

A Messiah for the World’s End

Pharisees and Sadducees

The Essenes

Was Jesus an Essene?

The Wisdom of the Greeks

New Gods, New Philosophies

Preaching Foolishness?

The Quest for the Historical Jesus

The Gospel Accounts

The Last Supper

What did Jesus preach?

Was Jesus Un-Jewish?

A Teaching for the End of the World?

What did Jesus really mean?

Jesus and the Kingdom of God

Jesus, the Anointed

The Messiah, the Son of Man, the Son of God

The Kingdom of the Poor?

The Cross

Ecce Homo (John 19.5)

The Irony of the Cross

The Resurrection

The Mystery of the First Christians

From the Acts of the Apostles

The Birth of Christianity

Pauline Christology

Jewish Christianity vs. Universal Christianity

Un-Jewish Greek ideas?

But is He Man or God?

The Immaterial Divine in Material Form

Orthodoxy and Heresy: (1) Docetism

Against the Flesh

Jesus not anti-Sex

Arianism

The Anthropic Principle

Jesus, the Pantokrator

From Early Church to Imperial Religion

The Persecutions

‘No to the Emperor!’

Constantine Christianizes the Roman Empire

Jesus the Man: Ruler or Slave, Suffering Servant or Political Liberator?

The State Religion of Christendom

Following Jesus in Poverty

Devotional Meditation

Meek and Mild as the Child Jesus

Millenarianist Revolutionaries

Luther

When the Saints come marchin’ in…

Jesus, ‘Our Contemporary’

Loyola’s Meditational Discipline

The Jesuits

Other Catholic Mystics

Emphasizing the Person in Christian Mysticism

The Sacred Heart of Christ the King

Liberation Theology

Assenting to the Lord Jesus

Foolishness and Wisdom

The Idea of Redemption

Can we ‘explain away’ Christianity?

Further Reading

Acknowledgements

About the Author

What is the Nicene Creed?

Orthodox Christianity has long been defined by the profession of faith, known as the Nicene Creed. Although named after the Council of Nicaea (a meeting of many bishops in what is now Iznik in Turkey in 325 AD), the Creed was not formulated there.

IT PROBABLY DATES FROM THE 5TH. CENTURY AD. BUT IT DOES REFLECT THE DECISIONS OF THE COUNCIL.

The first Christian Roman Emperor Constantine (c. 280-337) called the Council of Nicaea.

IN ORDER TO STIFLE DISSENSION IN THE CHURCH.

The Council was pivotal in defining Christian belief about Jesus Christ and his divinity.

This Creed affirms that Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of God, of one substance with God the Father, but that he was also a true man. Any account of Jesus has to consider both the life of the man Jesus, the historical person who lived in Galilee, and what Christians believe about him. Whether one is a Christian or not depends on whether one believes the Jesus of history is identical with the Christ of faith.

Jesus of Nazareth

The man whom we know as Jesus Christ was born during the reign of Augustus, the first Roman Emperor (63 BC-14 AD), around the year 4 BC. He was Jewish and brought up in Galilee, though he may not have been born there.

COULD THIS BE THE EARLIEST PORTRAIT OF JESUS?

During the final years of his short life, he became well known as a religious teacher in various parts of Galilee, Samaria and Judaea, including Jerusalem.

Around the year 30 AD during the reign of the Emperor Tiberius (42 BC-37 AD), he was put to death by crucifixion by the Roman Procurator (or governor). After his death, he was believed to have made messianic claims on his own behalf. Even during his life, his claims and his actions were deeply offensive to orthodox Jews.

The Evidence that Jesus Existed

After his death, his followers formed a sect, which has grown in strength ever since. They believe that Jesus rose from the dead, and that he is in fact God.

Within a century of his death, Jesus was mentioned as a real person by the Roman historians, Suetonius (c. 69-122 AD) and Tacitus (c. 56-117 AD), by the Jewish leader and writer Josephus (c. 37-97 AD), and also by the Roman writer and administrator, Pliny the Younger (c. 61-113 AD).

His followers also compiled various accounts of his life, known as gospels, from the Old English godspel, meaning good news. Gospels attributed to the apostles of Jesus, Mark, Matthew and Luke, are widely held to date from 60 to 80 AD. A fourth, John’s Gospel, was probably written after 100 AD.

Earlier than any of the Gospels were several of the numerous letters or Epistles of St. Paul.

THE EARLIEST IS MY FIRST EPISTLE TO THE THESSALONIANS OF ABOUT 50 AD.

There is also an early Acts of the Apostles which recounts the doings of the very early Church from Jesus’ death until about 65 AD.

Jesus of History

All the early sources, Christian and non-Christian, take it for granted that Jesus was a real, historical person. An impartial and objective outline of Jesus’ life, such as that given in the previous section, could have been written at almost any time since Jesus’ death.

FEW HISTORIANS OF ANY STANDING WOULD WISH TO QUARREL WITH THIS OUTLINE. PROBLEMS ARISE WITH THE EMBELLISHMENT OF THIS ACCOUNT.

The Gospels provide fuller accounts, but these are strongly coloured by theological interpretations of Jesus’ life and, in any case, were written a good 30 years or more after his death.

THIS DOESN’T MEAN WE SHOULD REJECT THEIR VALUE AS HISTORICAL SOURCES. BUT IT DOES SUGGEST THAT WE CAN’T ALWAYS TAKE THEM AT FACE VALUE.

Chapter and Verse

In Matthew 24.30, Mark 13.26 and Luke 21.27, Jesus is represented as referring to a passage in the Old Testament Book of Daniel (chapter 7, verses 13-14): I saw in the night visions, and, behold one like the Son of man came with the clouds of Heaven…And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a people.

The reference is in Jesus’ reply to his disciples on the Mount of Olives.

What shall be the sign of thy coming and of the end of the world? …they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

Fact, Fiction or Drama Documentary?

Many New Testament scholars regard this and similar passages as words put into Jesus’ mouth by the evangelists after his death, rather in the manner of much contemporary popular biographical writing which veers towards the fictional.

MARRY ME, BESS. NOT ON YOUR LIFE!

Can any writer know what was said in private between Queen Elizabeth I and the Earl of Essex? Such biographical guesswork is an attempt, not necessarily misguided, to reconstruct and make sense of earlier events.

Judaism at the time of Jesus

Having originally been desert nomads and after many wanderings and vicissitudes, by about 1000 BC the Israelites under David had formed a single kingdom. This comprised Jerusalem and most of the surrounding area on both sides of the Jordan, south to the Red Sea, and north into what is now Syria.

THIS IS THE FULFILMENT OF THE PROMISE OF A NEW LAND GIVEN BY GOD TO MOSES.

But over the following centuries David’s empire fell apart, soon to be restricted to a small northern kingdom (Israel) and a southern kingdom (Judah or Judaea).

Israel fell to Assyria in 721 BC. What was left of Judah perished when Jerusalem fell and many of the Jews were taken to Babylon in 587 BC.

A partial return to Jerusalem and restoration of the Jewish cult there was effected in 538 BC under the then dominant Persians.

The area succumbed to Alexander the Great in 333 BC and was ruled by his Greek successors until the Maccabean uprising of 165 BC.

The Jews then recovered a measure of independence, but internal strife brought about the effective annexation of Judaea by the Romans in 64-63 BC.

AT FIRST WE WORKED THROUGH LOCAL KINGS, LIKE HEROD THE GREAT. I BEGAN A MASSIVE REBUILDING OF THE TEMPLE OF JERUSALEM.

Herod (73-4 BC) was half Arab, and only a Jew insofar as he was also half Idumean. The Idumeans had been forcibly converted to Judaism a generation or two before his birth.

Herod’s reign represented a period of comparative peace and prosperity for his Jewish subjects, despite the numerous murders with which it was marked.

THE MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS AT THE TIME OF JESUS’ BIRTH MAY JUST BE A STORY… BUT IT’S QUITE IN KEEPING WITH HEROD’S CHARACTER!

Wearied with the problems of the area, in 6 AD the Romans installed their own man as Procurator of Judaea, though Herod’s son Herod Antipas (21 BC-39 AD) remained ruler of Galilee.

TENSIONS BETWEEN THE JEWS AND US MOUNTED…