RESURRECTION

In his seminal work on Christology, Jesus - God and Man, Wolfhart Pannenberg emphasizes that the resurrection is the crucial event by which Jesus the man is attested to be also divine. Like Jurgen Moltmann (The Crucified God) Pannenberg sees the resurrection as absolutely vital to Christian faith - and this means the resurrection as, in some sense, a real historical event, and not simply a subjective vision or existential experience among the disciples, as 'demythologizers' would lead us to believe.

And here's another - Bishop N T Wright's - take on it -

DID JESUS EXIST?

First, from the negative side:

It is easy to trawl atheist websites and come up with a conclusion like this, which I read somewhere on a Usenet newsgroup:

'More evidence that supports the fact that Jesus the Christ is pure myth and fable. For being considered the most influential person in all of history, it is strange that of the 29 first century historians who existed at the time of Jesus, none of them mention Jesus at all...

A learned friend responds:

1. Philo Judaeus

A philosopher, not a historian.

2. Apollonius of Tyana

Virtually no writings survive

3. Valerius Maximus

Not a historian - wrote a manual on "historical tales for rhetoricians" based largely on Roman history

4. Marcus Manilius

Not a historian - a poet and astrologer

5. Velleius Paterculus

A historian, but dead before the crucifixion (19 BC - 31 AD)

6. Quintus Curtius Rufus

Only surviving work is an autobiography of Alexander the Great. Oddly, Jesus doesn't appear.

7. Pomponius Mela

Not a historian - a geographer

8. Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Not a historian - a very bright man, but not a historian

9. Petronius Arbiter

Not a historian - a satirist

10. C. Musonius Rufus

Not a historian -- a philosopher, none of whose works now exist.

11. Aulus Persius Flaccus

Not a historian - a poet and satirist

12. Marcus Annaeus Lucanus

Only surviving historical work concerns the Roman Civil War. Oddly, does not mention Jesus

13. Hero(n) of Alexandria

Not a historian - a mathematician and engineer

14. Geminus

Not a historian - a mathematician and astronomer

15. Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella

Not a historian -- a writer on agriculture.

16. Cleomedes

Not a historian - an astronomer

17. Phaedrus

Not a historian - a writer of fables in imitation of Aesop

18. Dioscorides

Not a historian - a physician and pharmacologist

19. Plutarch of Chaeronea

A historian whose only extant works in this field focus on Alexander, Pliny and Herodotus. Oddly, does not mention Jesus

20.Justus of Tiberias

A historian whose work is lost and is anyway described by Photius as very brief and largely fictitious.

21. Pliny the Elder (Gaius Plinius Secundus)

His history is lost; the surviving work is a National History, discussing drugs etc.

22. Dio Chrysostom (Cocceianus Dio)

Regarded as a historian by his contemporaries but no historical works survive

23. Marcus Fabius Quintilianus

Only extant work is a textbook on rhetoric

24. Publius Papinius

Publius Papinius **Statius**, you mean? A poet, not a historian.

25. Dio of Prusa

Same person as Dio Chrysostom!!!

26. Silius Italicus

Not a historian - a poet. Only surviving work an epic based on the Punic wars

27. Sextus Julius Frontinus

Not a historian - a soldier and administrator

28. Marcus Valerius Martialus

Not a historian - read his "Epigrams".

29. Hierocles of Alexandria

Writing in the 5th Century AD by which time Christianity was the official religion of the Empire!!!

Watch for more...

WAS JESUS GOD?

According to the respected New Testament scholar Raymond Brown:

When asked whether the NT calls Jesus God:

1. Three NT texts unmistakably do (Hebrews 1:8-9, John 1:1, 20:28)

2. Five others probably do (John 1:18, Titus 2:13, 1 John 5:20, Romans 9:5, 2 Peter 1:1)

3. And most, if not all, of these seem to spring from a context of worship. (Expository Times, June 1968, p. 258)

THE 'WORD OF GOD'

The great 20th century theologian Karl Barth has taught us that when we think of the phrase 'the Word of God' we must think three ways:

The Eternal Logos (Christ)

The Written Word (Scripture)

The Preached Word.


(more to come)...

PRAYERS TO JESUS

An online friend wrote: 'There are no prayers to Jesus in the Gospels.' I think he was wrong, and will post some material on that some time.

Meanwhile: at the close of the theatre production of Gospell the young players silently carried the corpse of Jesus from the stage. At that moment there's a pervasive feeling of despair - will this joyous production end with the triumph of the forces of evil?

Then all is transformed: the production ends with the caste back on stage joyously singing:

Day by day, for three things I pray -
to see Him more clearly, to love Him
more dearly, to follow Him more nearly,
Day by Day.

JESUS AND PAUL

I heard a good sermon yesterday which suggested that part of the reason the Orthodox/conservative Western wing of the Church likes Paul (and often preaches from Paul more than from Jesus) is that Paul is discursive whereas the Jesus of the Gospels mostly uses narrative.

Figure this out, for example: why does Jesus never (never? can someone enlighten me?) use the term 'God' but descriptive terms like 'Father' in his prayers?

Another clue: why doesn't Paul cite any of Jesus' core narrative-based teachings/quotes in his letters (except perhaps for the Last Supper)?

We must remember that the apostles are to Jesus as Jupiter's moons are to the sun: multiple/different reflections of the Light of Christ. (I'm not an astronomer: but I presume Jupiter's moons give more light in total to that planet than our moon does to ours: does it?)

See my (developing) article: 'Did Paul Mess Up Jesus' Religion?'

Rowland Croucher

MEETING THE SAVIOUR

Review: Meeting the Saviour: the Glory of Jesus in the Gospel of John by Derek Tidball (Bible Reading Fellowship 2007).

Here's a delightful, warm, devotional book which takes us on a journey through the Fourth Gospel. The theme is 'glory' - a strange idea for moderns, but common in the Old and New Testaments to describe God's being 'worthy of honour, esteem, worship'.

In the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) Jesus' 'glory' is only associated with the Transfiguration, but in John his glory is 'manifested' time and time again.

Derek Tidball is a British Evangelical, currently principal of the London School of Theology. Here he offers us 26 devotional chapters on various stories in John. His scholarship is unquestioned, and he writes too as a pastor. Being Evangelical he has a 'high christology': 'Jesus was God's agent in bringing into being all that there is in our universe... There is no corner in the universe that does not have its origin in Jesus... The highest, widest and deepest are his creation... the DNA helix, the quasars and quarks were designed and produced by him...' That's in chapter one: so we know what we're in for in the rest of the series...

Jesus was truly human: he 'did not shoot down to earth as if he were some celestial politician arriving at the scene of a tragedy for a brief photo opportunity.'

A good way to get a feel for a writer's approach is to go first to the back and study the bibliography: it's probably a naughty habit, but I find it enlightening. Just about all of Tidball's quotes are from 'evangelical' authors: the broadest, theologically, being William Barclay and William Temple (both brilliant scholars and writers, in my view). How about this from Archbishop Temple (in the story of Jesus turning water into wine): 'The modest water saw its God and blushed.'

I loved the chapter on Jesus and the woman at the well. 'Here was a woman who was longing to be loved... she was probably a stigmatized woman in her village... but we shouldn't assume it was her fault.'
When an evangelical scholar writes pastorally like that (many don't) I want to read more.

Get someone to buy it for you, and spend a slow month walking prayerfully through it: these homilies will feed both your soul and your mind.

Finally a well-known quote, again from Temple: 'It is no good giving me a play like Hamlet or King Lear, and telling me to write a play like that. Shakespeare could do it; I can't. And it is no good showing me a life like the life of Jesus and telling me to live like that. Jesus could do it; I can't. But if the genius of Shakespeare could come and live in me, then I could write plays like that. And if the Spirit of Jesus could come and live in me, then I could live a life like that.'

Review copy from Ridley Melbourne Bookshop - http://bookshop.ridley.unimelb.edu.au/bookweb/

Rowland Croucher
December 2007

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