October 9 - The Historical Jesus

Fridays are a wrap up day for me and I generally spend quite a bit of time digging into my Greek.  Trust me, you do NOT want me to try to teach you what I'm learning right now.  Ouch!  I have the entire weekend to get this stuff in my head for the quiz next week.  Then, maybe I can translate it for you. 

One of the most difficult things of this is that he has to work so hard teaching us grammar.  I'm not going to say it is basic grammar, but I suppose it might be considered that way.  We're working on the Direct Article (the) and Adverbs right now, and my head hurts.  There is only one way to signify the Direct Article in English.  It is simply ... 'the.'  (or teh as I typed it before correction).  In Greek, the Direct Article is found in 24 different forms.  Now, my professor assures us that once we have them memorized they will help down the road (which, by the way is the Greek word hawdawss, which can be translated as 'way' or 'path.').  So, they are on a flashcard now and I will work through the memorization until my brains begin to flee in terror.

It is much simpler for me to retreat into the Gospel of Matthew.  I spent a lot of time in Matthew 5 this week and I am thankful for that. Of course, this is after a discussion in my Introduction to New Testament course that was about the Quest for the Historical Jesus.  I'm telling you what - if you want to stay a happy Christian, stay ignorant. 

That might be a bit of an exaggeration, but learning about what has happened in the last two thousand years regarding scholarly study of the Bible can be painful.  For years and years, the Gospels were accepted as historically and theologically accurate.  These are the sources of all the information we have regarding Jesus' life, ministry and relationship to God and man. 

Well, that's all fine and good until someone decides that isn't good enough!  Historians began tearing the Gospels apart, trying to decide whether or not they were historically accurate.  Hmmm, it occurs to me that after several (many) centuries, there isn't anyone around to actually make that determination and we have to rely on some source or other.  But, no ... that wasn't enough and the Gospels were soon rejected by them as sources for historical accuracy.  That was the first quest.  The second quest hit when a scholar finally decided that it just didn't matter.  All that mattered was that theologically things were accurate. We only needed to have faith that Jesus was who he said he was.  Well, that didn't help things at all.  You can't just set the question aside.

Fortunately in the last fifty years, scholars have begun to return to the idea that we can trust the Gospels to be historically and theologically accurate.  Whew!  Just in time for me to be in seminary. 

This is too much excitement for me sometimes.  Watching the debates happen in the class forums is entertaining, but wears me out.

So ... I'll move back into the Gospel itself and as I close out the reading this week from Matthew 5:17-48, I recognize that Jesus had plenty to say to people and he didn't really care whether we were going to declare him historically accurate or not.  He is history.  He was here before time began and will be here long after the world as we know it is finished.  He calls us to perfection so that we can join him.  That actually works just fine for me!