The Consciousness of the Historical Jesus

The Consciousness of the Historical Jesus
Author: Austin Stevenson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 382
Release: 2024-02-22
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0567714411

In this book, Austin Stevenson argues that it is not the 'divinity' of Jesus that causes problems for historians, but his humanity. To insist that Jesus was fully human, as both theologians and historians do, still leaves us with the question of what it means to be human. It turns out that theologians and historians often have different answers to this question on both a philosophical and a theological register. Furthermore, historians frequently misunderstand the historiographical implications of classical Christology, and thus the compatibility between traditional beliefs about Jesus and critical historical inquiry. Through close engagement with the thought of Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225–74), this book offers a new path toward the reconciliation of these disciplines by focusing on human knowledge and subjectivity, which are central issues in both historical method and Christology. By interrogating and challenging the normative metaphysical assumptions operative in Jesus scholarship, a range of possibility is opened up for approaches to Jesus that are genuinely historical, but not naturalistic.

The Consciousness of the Historical Jesus

The Consciousness of the Historical Jesus
Author: Austin Stevenson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2024-02-22
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0567714403

In this book, Austin Stevenson argues that it is not the 'divinity' of Jesus that causes problems for historians, but his humanity. To insist that Jesus was fully human, as both theologians and historians do, still leaves us with the question of what it means to be human. It turns out that theologians and historians often have different answers to this question on both a philosophical and a theological register. Furthermore, historians frequently misunderstand the historiographical implications of classical Christology, and thus the compatibility between traditional beliefs about Jesus and critical historical inquiry. Through close engagement with the thought of Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225–74), this book offers a new path toward the reconciliation of these disciplines by focusing on human knowledge and subjectivity, which are central issues in both historical method and Christology. By interrogating and challenging the normative metaphysical assumptions operative in Jesus scholarship, a range of possibility is opened up for approaches to Jesus that are genuinely historical, but not naturalistic.

The Historical Jesus in Recent Research

The Historical Jesus in Recent Research
Author: James D. G. Dunn
Publisher: Eisenbrauns
Total Pages: 636
Release: 2005-01-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1575061007

The past two or three decades have witnessed significant activity in research on the Jesus of the Gospels and history. In fact, there has been such a plethora of publication on such a wide variety of facets of this issue that it is difficult to keep pace with the rate of publication. In this volume, Dunn and McKnight have collected and provided introductions to a wide cross-section of essays on the topic, ranging from classic essays by the likes of Bultmann, Cadbury, and Schweitzer to the most recent investigations of Horsley, Levine, and Wright. This volume will be a very useful book for courses and seminars on Jesus or the historical Jesus, because it draws together in one place a wide variety of perspectives and approaches to the issues. Authors represented include: P. S. Alexander, D. C. Allison, P. W. Barnett, M. J. Borg, R. Bultmann, H. J. Cadbury, P. M. Casey, G. B. Caird, B. Chilton, C. E. B. Cranfield, J. D. G. Dunn, R. A. Horsley, J. Jeremias, M. K�hler, W. G. K�mmel, E. E. Lemcio, A.-J. Levine, G. Luedemann, J. P. Meier, B. F. Meyer, R. Morgan, J. A. T. Robinson, E. P. Sanders, A. Schweitzer, K. R. Snodgrass, G. N. Stanton, P. Stuhlmacher, G. Theissen, N. T. Wright.

From the Historical Jesus to the Cosmic Christ: A Paradigm Shift of Consciousness

From the Historical Jesus to the Cosmic Christ: A Paradigm Shift of Consciousness
Author: Rev Lisa Potter
Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Incorporated
Total Pages: 342
Release: 2018-11-15
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9781641916691

Reverend Potter holds that there is a great esoteric knowledge hidden in the Christian Gospel in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ about the evolution of the human race and its ultimate goal. This esoteric knowledge is also found in ancient cultures of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, India, Greece, and Rome. Here can be found the belief of a pre-existent archetypal Cosmic Christ or God-Person. Jesus, being a recipient of this knowledge, achieved in his lifetime for humanity a "New state of being," a "New humanity," to which we are all heirs. Teilard de Chardin referred to this new state of being as Christ's "third nature," meaning that his human and divine natures transcended into a third realm that is neither human nor divine but cosmic. Chardin refers to this process of transformation as the Christification (Divinization) of humanity. Reverend Potter believes that the ultimate goal of humanity is to birth this "Cosmic Christ" or God-Person, this Kingdom of God within all, as Jesus refers to it. This Cosmic birth is a shift from terrestrial life to universal life where humanity realizes its Oneness with all creation. This new "Cosmic birth, this Kingdom of God within achieved by Jesus Christ, to which we are all heirs as he foretold, is the Principle of the Godhead active in history and can be seen working in and through the Israelite people and speaking through the great Biblical patriarchs and prophets. This principle of the Godhead can be seen moving in and through all the great religions of the world in every age. Buddhists refer to it as "becoming the Bodhisattva" or "becoming the Buddha." The Yoga and Vedanta traditions of Hinduism refer to it as "Self-realization" or "God- realization." Sufism of the Islamic tradition refers to it as "becoming an adept or master on the path," by finding the inner Way. Jewish Kabbalah refers to it as "achieving personal development and Self- realization based on the Tree of Life (Map of consciousness). Primordial people referred to it as "all my relations." In the New Testament, Paul speaks of this as the Mystical Body of Christ. This Body embraces the whole of Creation and is the Body of a true realized and awakened humanity as foretold in the Book of Revelation, the book that closes out the Bible. The world, including Christians, has yet to understand the fullness of Jesus Christ's revelation for humanity. This book is an attempt to understand more fully the meaning and purpose of his revelation for the human race while looking at the revelations of other world religions and sacred teachings. We live in a time when the earth itself and all its creatures are in peril because of humanity's disregard for or lack of understanding of the cosmic laws that govern the universe. The most fundamental question for Christians and people in general today is what happened to the body of Jesus after his crucifixion. Did Jesus die a physical death, or was his physical body transformed into another cosmic state-a state that he declared is the goal for the human race?

Historical Jesus

Historical Jesus
Author: Anthony Le Donne
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Total Pages: 161
Release: 2011
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0802865267

Historical Jesus asks two primary questions: What does historical mean? and How should we apply this to Jesus? Anthony Le Donne begins with the unusual step of considering human perception how sensory data from sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell are interpreted from the very beginning by what we expect, what we ve learned, and how we categorize the world. In this way Le Donne shows how historical memories are initially formed. He continues with the nature of human memory and how it interacts with group memories. Finally, he offers a philosophy of history and uses it to outline three dimensions from the life of Jesus: his dysfunctional family, his politics, and his final confrontation in Jerusalem. This little book is ideal for those with no background in religious studies even those with no faith who wish to better understand who Jesus was and how we can know what we do know about him.

The Historical Jesus of the Gospels

The Historical Jesus of the Gospels
Author: Craig S. Keener
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Total Pages: 870
Release: 2012-04-13
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0802868886

The earliest substantive sources available for historical Jesus research are in the Gospels themselves; when interpreted in their early Jewish setting, their picture of Jesus is more coherent and plausible than are the competing theories offered by many modern scholars. So argues Craig Keener in The Historical Jesus of the Gospels. In exploring the depth and riches of the material found in the Synoptic Gospels, Keener shows how many works on the historical Jesus emphasize just one aspect of the Jesus tradition against others, but a much wider range of material in the Jesus tradition makes sense in an ancient Jewish setting. Keener masterfully uses a broad range of evidence from the early Jesus traditions and early Judaism to reconstruct a fuller portrait of the Jesus who lived in history.