Christain Beginnings notes for Wednesday 4/10/02

Start reading "Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up?" through page 39 for Friday (monday) & read Matthew Chp. 5-7 (The sermon on the mount)


THE SEARCH FOR THE HISTORICAL JESUS VS. THE CHRIST OF FAITH

Key Theorists

David Strass(1808-1874) A german, looked for the historical kernel of mythic Jesus. The first person to talk about the difference between historical Jesus and Divine Jesus.

Rudolph Bultmann(1884-1976)- said the scripture needed to be demythologized-stripped of metaphysics and superstition to bring out it's important symbolism and ethics. Bultmann was an existentialist believing life is inherently meaningless and we need to create our own meaning. Meaning come from within not from without.

Albert Schweitzer- Wrote "Quest for Historical Jesus" in 1910. The book shook the scholarly world and changed churches. Schweitzer was a missionary that believed the important part of Jesus's teaching was the ethics.

2 QUESTIONS

1. Was Jesus as he was portrayed in the New Testament?

2. If not is there anything worth believing anyway?

2 LIBERAL CLAIMS

1. The writers of the New Testament (or Jesus) didn't intend to be taken literally.

2. Even if they intended to be taken literally, we shouldn't take them literally today.