http://www.ntgateway.com/xtalk/conversation.html


Here is a transcript of a wonderful exchange between two members of the somewhat notorious Jesus Seminar and several other scholars that weigh in significantly on its assumptions; this is worth reading not only to appreciate how progressive Biblical scholarship has become, and how it has actually deepened the historicity of the risen Jesus, but for how far the west has come in being able to tolerate the pluralisms that are sorely needed in Muslim circles, before the latter can hope to find a meaningful place in the modern world. These are also the kinds of conversations New Agers may benefit from as well, which can help them reconsider traditional teachings with they often despise, sometimes for good reasons, but without the dynamics of this kind of dialogue.

I just got off the phone with someone in New Delhi,
where the Bhagavad Gita and the Dhamapada are going through historical criticism, which probably won't affect them too much, since they have a more ingrained sense of symbol and metaphor.

Islamic fundamentalism will no doubt be traumatized
and hemhorraging by the time the historical-critical
methodology gets through with them. The Koran does
not do well under the microscope.

I'm in the Luke Timothy Johnson category, and am fond of scholars even more conservative than he,
although Dominic Crossan intrigues me also. He seems to have something not so cut and dried, yet leaving room for mystery and metaphor.

I get a little emotional about Marcus Borg, since
I got the left foot of fellowship and was eventually banned from christianmystics.com by a Borg (resistance is futile) disciple who was convinced that a resurrected Christ was nothing but a grotesque image of a reanimated corpse coming straight out of zombie lore, and that his body was probably dumped at gehenna with the rest of the trash. Why follow him then? Oh, well...

In Reading The Bible Again for the First Time (page 206-7), Borg announces the metaphorical meaning of Jesus walking on water:

* Without Jesus, you don't get anywhere

* Without Jesus, you're at sea and in the dark

* Following Jesus may put you in difficult situations

* Jesus takes away fear

* Jesus comes to you in distress

* Jesus stills storms

And the metaphorical meaning of the feeding of the multitudes:

* Without Jesus, you go hungry

* With Jesus, there is more than enough

* Feeding the multitude matters to Jesus

* Jesus commands his followers to feed the multitude

* Jesus' followers resist feeding the multitude: How is it possible, they ask?

-------------------------------------------------

Borg's non-miraculous Jesus is for thinking people
who are rather enamored with their fine minds.

His socialist leanings become apparrent by his interperetation of the feeding of the multitudes, as well as his "dialectical" Jesus which pays homage to Marx and Hegel.

Borg formed his theology in college at a time when
Bultmann was popular, and his political views are straight out of Johnson's Great Society, which indicates to me that Borg has not had an original thought in forty years. Sorry Marcus! No doubt he will continue to teach this stuff and remain comfortably ensconced in his liberal theology department on the left coast.

caritas,

mm <*))))))><

Yes, Michael. I've gotten that sense of Borg, and you can see it in the exchanges he has with the other scholars. OTWH, he says Jesus was a healer, wisdom-bearer, God intoxicated Jew, etc . . . but then denies the incarnational meaning of such distinctions, even when the Messiah-type expectations of the first century are the obvious context, and the notion of bodily resurrection the only tenable form Jews of that era would have recognized. The idea of the terrified disciples trusting anything else is hard to imagine.

But give this one a read if you haven't already. Borg and Crossan are taken to task by Luke T. Johnson and N.T. Wright, and yet they are all open to each other in a way that is refreshing to see.

I'm halfway through with N.T. Wright's book "The Challenge of Jesus," which he had just finished prior to this debate. It is by far the most engaging book along these lines I've read (I've read Johnson, Borg, and some of Crossan before). The fact that the majority of Christian scholars, and perhaps a majority of Christians (?), find this kind of dialogue engaging shows both how intelligent Christianity is re: philosophical pluralisms, well-grounded in a morality that opens one to genuine spiritual presence, and capable of inter-faith dialogue as a way of encouraging Muslims to find and deepen a Sufi-type moderation.

I haven't read the links yet, but intend to and will get back on it.

Jim Arraj has a nice essay on this topic that includes reviews of most of the works mentioned above. Luke Timothy Jonhson's The Real Jesus has also been helpful to me. I like his approach very much.

This all comes into play in The DaVinci Code, by Dan Brown, which I'm reading now. There's lots and lots of nonsense about early Christianity and Jesus in that book, some of which comes from Jesus Seminar work -- probably a distortion of, I'm sure.

Good topic!