Talk:Jesus/Historical Jesus/Apocalyptic prophet or Messiah

We shouldn't represent the views of the Jesus Seminar as though they are mainstream - that statement is very Jesus Seminar/Crossan-y, and if we are giving their positions, we should say so. Most scholars (secular or religious) view Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet who was principally concerned with the incipient arrival of the Kingdom of God. (Schweitzer certainly fits in with this idea, and it seems wrong to cite him in support of the Jesus Seminar, which wholly rejected his principal thesis). While such scholars might also agree that Jesus taught peace and love and respect for women, I think they would feel it is a distortion of their work to emphasize such aspects in order to create a false idea of consensus between their views and those of the Jesus Seminar. If we are talking about the Jesus Seminar's view, we should say as much. john k 02:51, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Just to note, it seems to me that we should summarize the most notable two non-fundamentalist interpretations of "the historical Jesus," - the idea of Jesus as apocalyptic prophet, deriving from Schweitzer and continuing, with significant variations, to be more or less the dominant scholarly interpretation up to the present; and the "ethicist" Crossan/Jesus Seminar Jesus, who is non-apocalyptic and preaches peace and love. It might also be noted that the Apocalyptic Jesus can be much more easily made compatible with a Christian view than Ethicist Jesus, but that secular scholars can be found holding to both views.

In terms of Ehrman, I can't really figure out if he has much of a position. His book seems to be a mass market effort to convince Christians that the Bible has errors and is not inspired. It seems to mostly make points that mainstream scholars have essentially accepted for a long time, and dress them up as new and iconoclastic. But this is all based on the Amazon reviews, so who knows? john k 16:57, 6 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I recently read Ehrman's book and found it fascinating. Mainstream scholars may have accepted parts of his work, but the history of the development of the Bible is little known by the common, daily Christian.  There is a large minority that still takes the position of Sola scriptura that Ehrman, IMHO, pretty much makes that position untenable.
 * I don't recall from the book that Ehrman took a position on Christ. His focus was on the development of scripture and how the constituted Bible we know today is not representative of the true words of Christ...not that they aren't, but that the bible has been affected by man since its creation.
 * Although it began to tell his personal story, he never stated clearly where his personal are today. Hope this helps.  Storm Rider (talk) 17:58, 6 April 2006 (UTC)


 * So we're not sure exactly what position Ehrman takes re: Jesus' message? Grigory Deepdelver of BrockenboringTalk TCF

In regards to Ehrman, these two sources may help: his book on the historical Jesus, and the earlychristianwritings summary of his position here. It sounds like Ehrman does not agree with Crossan/Funk.--Andrew c 22:03, 7 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I've been busy today with Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and Talk:Sacramental Union. I'll look over the Ehrman refs when I get a chance this weekend. As for Strauss, that is a common name, so I'll need a first name ;) Grigory Deepdelver of BrockenboringTalk TCF 22:22, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

From the review, sounds like Ehrman is an "apocalyptic Jesus" sort - the Amazon review specifically references Schweitzer. john k 04:21, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
 * And not to point out the obvious, but the earlychristianwritings.com page clearly lists him under the header: Jesus the Apocalyptic Prophet. And from what I recall of the section on the historical Jesus in Ehrman's The New Testament : A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings, this is an accurate title for his position.--Andrew c 04:25, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

As I said before, I think that a summary of academic positions on Jesus would note that, since Schweitzer, the dominant academic trend has been variations on the "apocalyptic prophet" model, and that this has been challenged by some academics, particularly Crossan and the Jesus Seminar, who have posited the "Jesus as cynic philosopher"/ethicist/whatever idea. At the moment, it seems like we generally only give a) the Christian POV; and b) the Jesus Seminar POV, and ignore the dominant academic view of the last century. john k 14:37, 8 April 2006 (UTC)


 * An interesting point, considering that others have said that the Seminar POV has been largely ignored (with the exception of the paragraph that we are discussing now). Other than theology, I'm not sure how the Schweitzer/Ehrman/apocalytpic prophet POV differs from Christianity. If it is missing, it should be included. I've been busier today comparing Jesus to other first century schools of Judaism, as noted in the long section below.


 * Does this school see John the Baptist as another apocylyptic prophet, or just Jesus?Grigory Deepdelver of BrockenboringTalk TCF 04:38, 9 April 2006 (UTC)


 * The Apocalyptic Prophet view is more easily compatible with (orthodox) Christianity, I think, but it's not the same as Christianity - one can believe Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet and that he was wrong, for instance (it is my understanding that this was Schweitzer's argument). The scholarship on the subject generally looks at the Gospel accounts critically, and tries to situate Jesus in the context of first century Jewish thought.  Writers like Sanders (Amazon summarizes his view in The Historical Figure of Jesus as follows: "Sanders (Jesus and Judaism) portrays Jesus as a miracle worker and eschatological prophet whose deeds point to a coming Kingdom of God where good will reign over evil."); Dale Allison (his book is titled Jesus of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet); N.T. Wright (the review of the Jesus Seminar's The Five Gospels on his website clearly show that he supports the apocalyptic prophet Jesus model); and so forth all seem to fit in this fairly broad conceptual model.  Some writers along these lines are Christians who believe that Jesus is the Son of God and was resurrected (Wright certainly fits in that model), and others, as far as I can tell, are not, and I'd guess that there's a fair amount of debate within that basic consensus about what exactly Jesus' apocalyptic message was, and what it meant, and so forth.  But basically, among those concerned with "the historical Jesus," the basic debate seems to be between people who think Jesus' main message had to do with the Kingdom of God and apocalyptic stuff, as opposed to those who think his main message was wise sayings and so forth, and that apocalyptic stuff was explicitly not a major part of his message.  The first group seems clearly to be the larger one.  In terms of views not being represented, the real problem is that we always seem, in Christianity articles, to get stuck with the Fundamentalist viewpoint and the "Jesus didn't even exist" viewpoint being overrepresented, and the actual mainstream scholarly views under-represented. john k 06:16, 9 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Re: your first sentence: that's what I meant by "other than theology." Obviously theology plays a major part in Christian views. The concept of Jesus as a failed apocalyptic prophet does seem to be missing. Grigory Deepdelver of BrockenboringTalk TCF 07:02, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

BTW, here's a useful Amazon list that seems to give a fairly comprehensive bibliography of recent "historical Jesus" type books. john k 06:54, 9 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Feel free to add sources to the list below. Grigory Deepdelver of BrockenboringTalk TCF 08:08, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Umm, shouldn't we be citing Ehrman's book on the historical Jesus, not his popular book on redaction, scribal errors, textual corruption, and source criticism?--Andrew c 05:12, 10 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Okay, I've updated the list. It seems to me that we might subdivide the list between those who portray Jesus as a failed apocalypic prophet/messiah a la Schweitzer, and those who note that the first-century concept some Jews had of a Messiah who comes twice (first as Mashiach ben Yossef, later as Mashiach ben David) is consistent with Christian doctrine (see the second list). Augsburg Fortress is a Lutheran (ELCA) publisher, so I would expect Allison to fall into the second camp. I'm not sure of the others.


 * It seems to me that the view of Jesus as failed prophet/Messiah is consistent with Judaism's view of Jesus and the summary in the Jesus article. The second list, which I've started below, is more consistent with Christian beliefs. Grigory Deepdelver of BrockenboringTalk TCF 12:52, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

We had a discussion on another page about how the Christian doctrine of the Second Coming is consistent with some late Second Temple period views of the Messiah(s):

"The concept of Messiah suffering for the atonement of Israel and the world, the idea of a dying and resurrected Messiah (ben Yosef), the Messiah disappearing and then re-appearing, are scattered concepts found within Judaism. The New Testament pieces all of these fragmentary and divergent concepts into Yeshua of Nazareth. Nothing of the sort is foreign to Judaism. Everything that is in the New Testament comes from various theological strata of a variety of different expectations of the Messiah. See Klausner, The Messianic Idea in Israel, cf. The Messiah Texts, Raphael Patai. Also the idea of a Levitical Messiah in the Dead Sea Scrolls, and other concepts in pseudipgraphal literature. Patai and Klausner both state that it was difficult to reconcile the idea of a dying Messiah for the Davidic King, and therefore the concept was split into two Messiahs, Messiah ben Yosef and Messiah ben David. Otherwise, if it were the same Messiah, you would have two comings. Therefore, the underlying theological motifs are not at all foreign to Judaism, but interpreted differently."

I've listed BRBurton's two sources above, and added two others. We may mention this briefly in this article, although this would also be important to such articles as Early Christianity. To avoid contention, I should note that I mean the above in the context of first-century Judaism. Obviously John the Baptist, Jesus and their disciples did not contribute to Judaism as it exists today (with the exception of such groups as Messianic Jews and the Jewish Ebionite Community). I think the first list (Jesus as failed prophet/messiah) is more consisitant with Judaism's view of Jesus. Grigory Deepdelver of BrockenboringTalk TCF 14:05, 10 April 2006 (UTC)