John Meier on Jesus and the Law

All too often in the past, Christian questers for the historical Jesus have created an opposition between the 'ritual,' 'cultic,' or 'legal' elements in the Law on the one hand and the 'moral' or 'ethical' elements on the other. One can see the problem immediately. This sort of distinction usually carries with it implicit value judgments that owe more to the European Enlightenment of the 18th century and American individualism of the 21st century than to Jewish views on the Law in 1st-century Palestine. To many modern minds, as they evaluate matters religious and spiritual, what is external, ritual, ceremonial, public, legal, or institutional is of little importance, is easily dispensed with, or is downright dangerous and to be avoided. In contrast, what is internal, private, personal, spontaneous, emotional, or unstructured belongs to true religion or spirituality, and it is in this sphere that true morality is to be found.

...For the ancient Near East, human beings were not Platonic souls entombed for a while in bodies; human beings were bodies enlivened by a vital force having a mind, will, and emotions. A religion that remained locked up in the inner recesses of the psyche, a religion that had no bodily expression in visible and communal actions, was quite literally non-sense.

...To sum up: an implicitly hostile opposition between 'cultic,' 'ritual,' or 'purely legal' elements of the Mosaic Law on the one hand and the 'truly moral' or 'ethical' elements on the other would have been alien to the mind-set of ordinary Palestinian Jews of Jesus' day. For such a Jew, what was 'moral' (if we may use that term) was to do God's will and to walk in his ways as laid out in the Torah God had given to Israel. (John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, 4:43–45.)

Put that in your theological pipe and smoke it.

Ben Witherington on Jesus, Interrupted

Ben Witherington III, Professor of New Testament Interpretation at Asbury Seminary in Kentucky, is reviewing Bart Ehrman's new book, Jesus, Interrupted.

Ehrman is a graduate of Wheaton College who has since lost his faith. He is now chair of the Religion Department at UNC Chapel Hill. He has written several books on the New Testament and the Historical Jesus targeted at popular audiences. Ehrman admits that his arguments are nothing new. He just wants the public to know what convervative scholarship "ignores."

Dr. Witherington is a top evangelical New Testament scholar, and his critique of Eherman is fair and informed.

Part 1



Part 2

Darrell Bock on Bart Ehrman

Dr. Darrell Bock has offered his initial thoughts on Bart Ehrman's new book, Jesus, Interrupted.

Ehrman is a graduate of Wheaton College who has since lost his faith. He is now chair of the Religion Department at UNC Chapel Hill. He has written several books on the New Testament and the Historical Jesus targeted at popular audiences. Ehrman admits that his arguments are nothing new. He just wants the public to know what convervative scholarship "ignores."

Enter Darrell Bock. He is a Research Professor of New Testament at Dallas Seminary and one of the major players in the IBR Jesus Group.

Bock points out what Ehrman confesses--there is nothing new in the book. Bock would disagree that conservative scholars have ignored the issue. He's right.

HT: Between Two Worlds

New Video from the IBR Jesus Group

The IBR Jesus group has put out a new online video about the historical Jesus. You can view the first video of the series here. The Institute of Biblical Research is a sub-group of the Society of Biblical Literature--more conservative than SBL at large but not as restrictive as the Evangelical Theological Society.

The work that the IBR Jesus group is doing is important because of the influence that the Jesus Seminar (another sub-group of SBL) has on the way that Jesus is portrayed in the media. The Jesus Seminar essentially paints Jesus as a wandering Galilean sage, whose followers elevated him to the theological position of "Son of God." Just about any documentary you see on television about the historical Jesus points out all of the "errors" in the biblical witness and portrays Jesus according to the Jesus Seminar's interpretation.

The Jesus Seminar's task is noble. On the surface, the group exists to sift through theology and discover the true historical Jesus. Religious literature tends to elevate its heroes and to create stories about them to justify the religious community's worship of that hero. We recognize this in the literature of other religions, why should we doubt it about the Bible? If we do not approach the Bible with preconceived notions about its accuracy or "inerrancy," we would be a little more hesitant to accept stories like Jesus walking on water or feeding 5,000 with just a few small loaves and fish. Thus, the Jesus Seminar seeks to distinguish "history" from "theology."

However, the Jesus Seminar's portrayal of Jesus is so different from that of the sources they use, it raises questions about the objectivity of their search. May there be ulterior motives behind the quest for the historical Jesus?

The IBR Jesus group uses the same methods of the highly influential Jesus Seminar to paint a completely different picture of Jesus. Essentially, they turn the issue around and show that unless you approach the Bible with preconceived notions of its inaccuracy, there is nothing in the story of Jesus that cannot be true. They have shown through historical investigation that Jesus really lived, that he was baptized by John the Baptist, that he proclaimed the coming reign of God, that he was considered a wonder-worker and exorcist, that he was crucified by the Romans for claiming to be Messiah, and that his followers claimed that he rose from the dead. From that historical framework, it is not too difficult to justify the more theological claim that he is the "Son of God."

I studied the historical Jesus with Dr. Darrell Bock (who is featured in the video) for a semester, and he had us investigate events in Jesus life according to the methods of historians. I looked at the Last Supper. The class was invaluable because it taught me to approach the issue of Jesus without preconceived theological ideas, and that one can do "good history" and still maintain a conservative interpretation of Jesus.

Dr. Bock has his own blog on issues related to the historical Jesus, and he also contributes to Primetime Jesus, a blog about Jesus in the media.