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mp3 - 04:12 -

where are we at today

Barbara Theiring quote

"It is in the scrolls if you really study the codes. It was not a resurrection. He was put on the cross. Those with his own party, trying to help him to commit suicide, gave him poison (The sponge dipped in vinegar). He was unconscious but not dead. His side was pierced, blood came out. A dead body does not bleed. So his followers knew that he was not dead. They put him in the cave. He lived until his seventies, and it was he, Jesus, acting behind Paul, who led their party out of Judaism and to Rome. He married Mary Magdalene and had four children."

re-interpretation rather than new documentation of the life of Christ.

which reading of the gospels takes a greater 'leap of faith'?

she is just a recent example of many

Edward Shillenberg? - catholic theologian

'the NT is the testimony of believing people. What they are saying is not history but expressions of their belief in Jesus as Christ.'

NT not history but expressions of their belief in Jesus as Christ.

Rudolf Bultman

'Jesus and the word'

'We can strictly speaking know nothing of the personality of Jesus.For those whose interest is in the personality of Jesus this situation is depressing or destructive. For our purpose it has no particular significance.'

existentialist theologian.

what matters is not that you believe in the Jesus of History but that you believe in the Christ of faith.

that God acted in human life to save us.

that you have an encounter with God in your spiritual journey.

the Christ event

divorce reason from faith.

This is very diferent from to first century Christianity

1 John 1:1-3

at the end if the first century that most of the first generation of Christians had a deep conviction of the reality of Jesus Christ.

many of them gave their lives for him, because some of them had seen him in the flesh.

after the 'apostolic age' there was a deep descent.

'there is no steeper descent in xn thinking in all of the centuries than the descent from the first century to the second.'

If you want to see the difference between the writings that come out of an expression of belief and those that come from direct historical experience, then look at the difference between the first and second century. It is the writings that are closest to the real events that are most clear and direct in what they say about Jesus as a man. It is as experience becomes second and third hand that things change.

the move from the personality of Jesus to the theology of Jesus arises largely as a result of the struggle to respond to misleading claims made about Christ by those who had no direct historical experience of him personally.

heresies

ebionites

Jesus was a chosed man who received the Spirit of God at his baptism - became the messiah.

gnostics

beginning of 2nd cent

'knowledge'

emphasised 'special knowledge'

synthesis of greek and xn thought

matter is evil and spirit is good

either Christ was a phantom - not really flesh, just appearence of flesh - or the divine spirit came upon Christ at baptism.

by end of third century

Athenasius

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athanasius_of_Alexandria

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athanasian_Creed

early 4th century

arians

Christ was not God

not equal in essence or eternity

may be called a created god

a created being or spirit that entered a human body taking the place of the human spirit

325 AD council of Nicea

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea

nicene creed

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicene_Creed

1. Jesus Christ is described as "God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God."

2. Jesus Christ is said to be "begotten, not made."

3. Finally, he is said to be "of one substance with the Father." No follower of Arius could say these words as a profession of faith.

apolinarians

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollinarianism

Jesus had a human body but a divine mind and divine spirit.

First Council of Constantinople 381

nestorians

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestorianism

He also argued that God could never be a helpless child, and could not suffer on the cross. His opponents accused him of dividing Christ into two persons: arguing that God the Word did not suffer and die on the cross, while Jesus the man did, or that God the Word was omniscient, while Jesus the man had limited knowledge, effectively implies two separate persons with separate experiences. Nestorius responded that he believed that Christ was indeed one person (Greek: prosopon).

fully man and fully God but God dwelt in the man.

451 Council of Chalcedon

Chalcedonian Creed

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalcedonian_Creed

co-subsctantial with the father in deity and co-substantial with man in humanity

We, then, following the holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach men to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood;

truly God and truly man, of a reasonable [rational] soul and body;

consubstantial [co-essential] with the Father according to the Godhead, and consubstantial with us according to the Manhood;

in all things like unto us, without sin;

begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhead, and in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, according to the Manhood;

one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably;

the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ;

as the prophets from the beginning [have declared] concerning Him, and the Lord Jesus Christ Himself has taught us, and the Creed of the holy Fathers has handed down to us.

church arguing theologically

saying exacly what kind of being Jesus was

defining Jesus

identifying Jesus primarily in theological terms

really god

really man

etc.

medieval theology

lofty

exalted

mystical

medieval society and feudalistic heirarchy

crusades

inquisition

keeping the leaders on track

14th - 17th cent - renaisance

re-birth, a re-awakening

re-discovery of greek world

recognition of the humanity of Christ

humanism with God at the centre

reformation

celebrated Jesus work

recognition of Jesus as saviour

enlightenment 18th cent

critical thinking

rationalism

emphasis on the individual

scientific method

humanism without God at the centre

reaction of church

first agression

then fear

knee jerk reaction

division between faith and reason

later - faith is the spiritual response to spiritual truth

Friedrich Schleiermacher

faith is the feeling of God consciousness