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Reclaiming the Jesus of History: Christology Today
Hardcover with dust jacket. Dust jacket has wear along the edges, corners and both ends of spine. Price tag on upper front corner of dust jacket. Otherwise pristine.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1992
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August 25, 2024
A THEOLOGIAN LOOKS AT THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE "HISTORICAL JESUS" FOR CHRISTOLOGY
Arthur Roy Eckardt (born 1918) is a theologian and Methodist minister, who has written many other books such as 'Jews and Christians: The Contemporary Meeting,' 'Encounter with Israel: A Challenge to Conscience,' 'Black-woman-Jew: Three wars for human liberation,' etc.
He wrote in the Preface to this 1992 book, "The question of Christology has lain implicit in my various efforts to date, but until now I have not quite had the presumption to reckon with that question intensively... I am hardly expert in this area, but I have worked out a procedure that may be of some interest ... I seek to address general readers, students and scholars. And I hope to have something to say to non-Christian inquirers as well as to Christians... The ideal consequence will be a conversation between our century and what we may seek to uncover from the first century." (Pg. xi-xii)
He states, "all I mean is agreement that the eschatological dimension of Jesus' message and mission is central, yet ... this dimension is not (from Jesus' apparent standpoint) transhistorical but is instead this-worldly in a revolutionary sense... I suggest that the most adequate way to encapsulate the message and mission of the historical Jesus is to identify him as a champion of his people Israel." (Pg. 63)
He says, "the nagging question does not let us go: How is it that Jesus comes to be executed? ... This is my hypothesis: For Jesus, during the months or days when in his spiritual, wracking solitude he is striving to face up to the nature and demands of his own calling, 'kingdom of God' somehow comes to converge upon 'King Messiah,' and 'King Messiah' somehow comes to converge upon 'kingdom of God.'" (Pg. 70-71)
He adds, "Evidently Jesus came to the conviction---held also by the Zealots---that God would go to his people's aid against the foreign enemy... The really significant factor, from the standpoint of the history of Jesus, is that his special version of apocalypticism and his latter-day messianic self-acceptance closely correspond to the two all-decisive elements just mentioned: the required intervention of God, and the required action of human beings." (Pg. 77)
He suggests, "I am assured that much of the Christian failure to acknowledge that Jesus was a theocentric Jewish revolutionist (against Rome) is related to continuing influences within the church of anti-Jewishness on the one hand and a Christian ideology of 'nonviolence' on the other." (Pg. 80) He adds, "Was Jesus, in fact, a liberator, or did he prove to be no more than a would-be liberator? It seems that there can be conclusive agreement upon only the second appellation." (Pg. 89)
He concludes, "The problem this book has raised is how to affirm the salvational power of the event of the Jesus of history without permitting the Christian faith to nurture idolatry (by, e.g., transmuting Jesus into the 'center' of all human history). We have seen how different Christologists of today, either implicitly, or explicitly, or both, are grappling with this problem." (Pg. 219)
This book will probably be of most interest not to those studying the historical Jesus, but to those concerned with the implications of such study on Christian faith.
Arthur Roy Eckardt (born 1918) is a theologian and Methodist minister, who has written many other books such as 'Jews and Christians: The Contemporary Meeting,' 'Encounter with Israel: A Challenge to Conscience,' 'Black-woman-Jew: Three wars for human liberation,' etc.
He wrote in the Preface to this 1992 book, "The question of Christology has lain implicit in my various efforts to date, but until now I have not quite had the presumption to reckon with that question intensively... I am hardly expert in this area, but I have worked out a procedure that may be of some interest ... I seek to address general readers, students and scholars. And I hope to have something to say to non-Christian inquirers as well as to Christians... The ideal consequence will be a conversation between our century and what we may seek to uncover from the first century." (Pg. xi-xii)
He states, "all I mean is agreement that the eschatological dimension of Jesus' message and mission is central, yet ... this dimension is not (from Jesus' apparent standpoint) transhistorical but is instead this-worldly in a revolutionary sense... I suggest that the most adequate way to encapsulate the message and mission of the historical Jesus is to identify him as a champion of his people Israel." (Pg. 63)
He says, "the nagging question does not let us go: How is it that Jesus comes to be executed? ... This is my hypothesis: For Jesus, during the months or days when in his spiritual, wracking solitude he is striving to face up to the nature and demands of his own calling, 'kingdom of God' somehow comes to converge upon 'King Messiah,' and 'King Messiah' somehow comes to converge upon 'kingdom of God.'" (Pg. 70-71)
He adds, "Evidently Jesus came to the conviction---held also by the Zealots---that God would go to his people's aid against the foreign enemy... The really significant factor, from the standpoint of the history of Jesus, is that his special version of apocalypticism and his latter-day messianic self-acceptance closely correspond to the two all-decisive elements just mentioned: the required intervention of God, and the required action of human beings." (Pg. 77)
He suggests, "I am assured that much of the Christian failure to acknowledge that Jesus was a theocentric Jewish revolutionist (against Rome) is related to continuing influences within the church of anti-Jewishness on the one hand and a Christian ideology of 'nonviolence' on the other." (Pg. 80) He adds, "Was Jesus, in fact, a liberator, or did he prove to be no more than a would-be liberator? It seems that there can be conclusive agreement upon only the second appellation." (Pg. 89)
He concludes, "The problem this book has raised is how to affirm the salvational power of the event of the Jesus of history without permitting the Christian faith to nurture idolatry (by, e.g., transmuting Jesus into the 'center' of all human history). We have seen how different Christologists of today, either implicitly, or explicitly, or both, are grappling with this problem." (Pg. 219)
This book will probably be of most interest not to those studying the historical Jesus, but to those concerned with the implications of such study on Christian faith.
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