Scripture and God in Christianity

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congregations today." 78 Hence, "the early Christians preserved the memory of a distinct segment of past history and feel their dependence on it. Thus the problems of the young Christian congregations have colored the material, but not created it. This looking back upon Jesus' earthly ministry is an essential factor in the early Christian tradition formation right from the very beginning." 79 He concludes, arguing that, "It thus seems historically very probable that the Jesus traditions in the Gospels have been preserved for us by men both reliable and well informed." 80 He further argued that "one must proceed on the belief that the Synoptic material in principle comes from the earthly Jesus and the disciples who followed him during his ministry, but that one must also do full justice to the fact that this memory material has been marked by the insights and interpretations gradually arrived at by the early Christian teachers." 81 The space does not allow us to discuss Gerhardsson's thesis in detail. It may suffice to quote E. P. Sanders who has shown that "the Christian tradition-at least in Papias' generation-was not passed down and spread in the systematic manner which Gerhrdsson describes as having taken place in Rabbinic Judaism. In sum, then, we see that there were probably significant differences between the Christian and Jewish method of transmission, although there may also have been significant similarities." 82 In short, to this group of scholars, the Gospel material is not inauthentic, and there is no great gulf between historical Jesus' sayings and the post-Easter portrayal of him in the Gospels. R. H. Fuller argues, that "the only difference between the message of Jesus and the Church's Kerygma is that Jesus proclaims that God is about to act decisively and eschatologically in him, the kerygma proclaims that God has so acted." 83 M. de Jonge writes: "Jesus is at the center of all early (and later) Christology. This presupposes some degree of continuity between what he said and did and people's reactions. It also presupposes some continuity between the situation of his followers before Jesus' cross and resurrection and their situation after those events." 84 L. H. Hurtado writes: "a key factor that must be taken into account in understanding the rise of early Christian devotion to Jesus is the pre-Easter ministry of Jesus and its effects upon his followers." 85 Ben Witherington agrees with this point of view, at least in connection with the Synoptics. He concludes: "Thus, the alleged chasm between the speech event of the historical Jesus and the post-Easter speaking about Jesus probably never existed." 86 Though he recognizes that " through the Easter experiences a new horizon of understanding was opened up." 87 From an historical perspective it may be observed, that there is no proof of any written collection of the original Aramaic sayings of Jesus or any notes or Gospel. E. G. Goodspeed has discussed the matter regarding the original language of the Gospels at length and concluded like many others, that "Certain it is that from the time Christianity really entered the Greek world it instinctively went about recording itself in writing-first letters, and then books." 88 There is also no proof that the disciples took notes of Jesus' sayings, or tried to preserve it verbatim or in any other systematic way such as those used by the rabbinical Judaism. E. P. Sanders has already shown that any such supposition could not be substantiated by historical facts. The sheer fact of different compositions and structures of Jesus' sayings and their early Greek translations demonstrate the validity of the assertion. Martin Dibelius' "From Tradition to Gospels", Bultmann's "History of the Synoptic Tradition", and E.P. Sanders' "The Tendencies of the Synoptic Tradition" are still useful references to elaborate the point. 89 The earliest Christian literature i.e., Paul's letters, as we 10
shall see later in the chapter, contain virtually nothing but a very few of Jesus' sayings. Even B. Gerhardsson recognizes that "It is certain that Paul does not quote the earthly Jesus very often in his Epistles, nor does he discuss such material." 90 The Gospel writers are far away from Jesus' own times and wrote at places where Jesus' disciples or contemporaries were virtually absent. The writers acceptance of Jesus as Lord and giving him central position in their writings do not necessarily mean the authenticity of their accounts regarding him. This fact becomes more evident when looked from the perspective of the time distance and the gulf that lies between Jesus and the early Christian writers. On the other hand, it does not seem plausible that the early Church concocted the entire situation without having any base in the tradition or historical Jesus. Arthur Drews, William B. Smith, and Well's theories of non-existence of Jesus are mere guess works. They are contrary to the genuinely reliable Christian and non-Christian historical writings about the existence of Jesus. 91 The earliest Christian writers, argues C.F.D. Moule, "were probably already heirs to a considerable body of tradition." 92 There were probably oral traditions circulating in the community regarding Jesus' virgin birth, miracles, and preaching. These traditions were selected, colored, modified and added to in light of the Easter experience or kerygma. It may suffice to quote here G. N. Stanton who comments: "Perhaps we will never know precisely the influences at work in the earliest christological reflections of the church. To claim that the christological beliefs of the primitive church have not left their mark upon the gospel traditions would be to fly in the face of clear evidence to the contrary. But we may be sure that traditions about the life and character of Jesus played an important part not only in the preaching of the primitive church, but also in its christological reflection: both began with Jesus of Nazareth." 93 It must be added here that the historical Jesus of Nazareth may be the beginning point for the primitive church, but by no means identical to what the church, later on, preached about him. Howard C. Kee probably is right when he observes, that "What we are dealing with in the gospel tradition is not objective historical evidence that has become overlaid with the claims of Christian faith, but with the evidence that in its entirety stems from the witness of faith at various stages of development." 94 In the middle of all these developments, one can try to locate the basic realities connected with the earthly life of Jesus overlaid with kerygmatic interpretations and mythical portrayals. A scholar of the New Testament, who is well versed in the cultural context of these writings and the first century Jewish and Hellenistic thought, can possibly determine these facts by peeling off the mythical layers. In the past scholars used to argue that we knew virtually nothing about the historical Jesus. This kind of trend had been characteristic of the period between 1910-1970, and presently has given way to a more positive approach since then. E. P. Sanders observes that "in recent decades we have grown more confident." 95 J. K. Riches discusses the basis of such a confidence: "What is the basis of such confidence, which is still not shared by all? In the first place it rests on a conviction that we do know that Jesus lived and died and that we know at least certain basic facts about his life with at least as much confidence as we could know similar facts about any other figure in ancient history. Compared with many ancient historians, New Testament scholars are in a relatively fortunate position. The second factor is a greater confidence in our ability to understand Jesus' social world, the world of first-century Judaism and its various renewal movements. This is obviously significant." 96 Sanders claims that now "There are no substantial doubts about the general course of Jesus' life: when and where he lived, approximately 11
Page 1 and 2: 1 3 Anthropomorphism and Transcende
Page 3 and 4: of a single century, under the ausp
Page 5 and 6: Luke the secretaries to Peter and P
Page 7 and 8: emerged out of particular "living s
Page 9: "Nevertheless, we can say in conclu
Page 13 and 14: light of a long period of mere oral
Page 15 and 16: It is interesting to note that in h
Page 17 and 18: hand to set forth in order a declar
Page 19 and 20: and the second and third Epistles o
Page 21 and 22: Therefore, according to the 1978 In
Page 23 and 24: tance of the New Testament mytholog
Page 25 and 26: Richard Swinburne's approach is qui
Page 27 and 28: from the beginning, a certain logic
Page 29 and 30: Contrary to that, John Hick firmly
Page 31 and 32: e partially hidden or to be underst
Page 33 and 34: G. Bernard Shaw argued that "Paul s
Page 35 and 36: assumes the complete agreement of t
Page 37 and 38: We have already seen in this chapte
Page 39 and 40: Therefore, it is safe to argue that
Page 41 and 42: The fact of the matter is that like
Page 43 and 44: On the other hand, many Christian s
Page 45 and 46: selves contain many passages which
Page 47 and 48: probably for the following reason:
Page 49 and 50: condescension. It was a unique and-
Page 51 and 52: The deity of Jesus may be more emph
Page 53 and 54: monotheistic passage from Isa. 45:2
Page 55 and 56: inclined to believe that a good cas
Page 57 and 58: passages are: "Passages of adoption
Page 59 and 60: ior to the one God.... In Justin's
Page 61 and 62:
God's transcendence and monarchia i
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all saw the Father in the Son. For
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submitted to birth from a virgin, a
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Christ. He taught that Jesus was me
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Jewish spirit it had absolutely not
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comprehensive discussion of the per
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His unity with the Father." 588 Ath
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that He was made,' or-is (was) chan
Page 77 and 78:
again the imperial power first in t
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Persons, and is not three separate
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majesty, should be defiled by assoc
Page 83 and 84:
H. A. Wolfson, that "Apollinaris, i
Page 85 and 86:
their identity "There the person ex
Page 87 and 88:
political power to suppress all rat
Page 89 and 90:
Christ; as from the beginning the p
Page 91 and 92:
Furthermore, the doctrine of one Pe
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even combined together do not give
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the body crucified was God's body.
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In view of what has been said, it b
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the theology into two main categori
Page 101 and 102:
world which produced this unique Ch
Page 103 and 104:
The same Cappadocian Father, St. Gr
Page 105 and 106:
105
Page 107 and 108:
30 30 For Irenaeus see Compenhausen
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85 85 L.W. Hurtado, One God, One Lo
Page 111 and 112:
142 142 E.P. Sanders, Ibid, 278; W.
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205 206 206 Kelly, Ibid, 8 207 207
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Apostle: The Triumph of God in Life
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324 324 Ibid, 13 325 325 L. Hodgson
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380 380 Bornkamm, Ibid, 17 381 381
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446 446 Armstrong, Ibid, p. 88-8 44
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530 530 Pelikan, 1, 17 531 531 Linw
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614 614 Harnack, 4, 5 615 615 Ibid,
Page 127 and 128:
696 696 H.V. Campenhausen, Ibid, p1
Page 129 and 130:
773 772 Quoted from Whale, Ibid, 9
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