Mark the evangelist allows us to listen
in on a conversation between Jesus and his disciples where Jesus asks the
question “Who do people say that I am?”[1] This question has troubled mankind and the
church for the last two millennia. In
451 AD the church attempted an answer at Chalcedon with the following
statement:
Therefore, following the holy fathers, we all
with one accord teach men to acknowledge one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ,
at once complete in Godhead and complete in manhood, truly God and truly man,
consisting also of a reasonable soul and body; of one substance with the Father
as regards his Godhead, and at the same time of one substance with us as
regards his manhood; like us in all respects, apart from sin; as regards his
Godhead, begotten of the Father before the ages, but yet as regards his manhood
begotten, for us men and for our salvation, of Mary the Virgin, the God-bearer;
one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, recognized in two natures,
without confusion, without change, without division, without separation; the
distinction of natures being in no way annulled by the union, but rather the
characteristics of each nature being preserved and coming together to form one
person and subsistence, not as parted or separated into two persons, but one
and the same Son and Only-begotten God the Word, Lord Jesus Christ; even as the
prophets from earliest times spoke of him, and our Lord Jesus Christ himself taught
us, and the creed of the fathers has handed down to us.[2]
Christendom on the whole accepted
this creed as the definitive answer for the next thirteen hundred years. However, in the eighteenth century Hermann
Samuel Reimarus, a professor of oriental language in Hamburg, Germany,
influenced Gotthold Lessing to write “The accidental truths of history can
never become the proof of necessary truths of reason”[3]
and with this the quest for the historical Jesus began. Across Lessing’s “broad ugly ditch of History”[4]
men tried to piece together a picture of Jesus that seemed reasonable, less
miraculous. One of the American Founding
Fathers, Thomas Jefferson, “cut and pasted together only those passages that
made sense to him”[5]. This quest has had its starts and stops, but
we seem to find ourselves today “in the midst of a cultural paradigm shift”[6] when
it comes to Christology. Every Easter
and Christmas brings with it a flurry of television and print articles that
question all aspects of orthodox Christology.
For example, the cover story for the March 28th 2005 issue of
Newsweek was titled “How Jesus Became the Christ”[7]. The idea that the early Christians
“backfilled” much of the gospel’s words figured heavily in this story. A leading protagonist in this story is The
Jesus Seminar. According to the Jesus Seminar Forum, the
official web site of the Jesus Seminar, the seminar was “convened in 1985 by
Robert W. Funk, [it] has become a lightning rod for international debate about
the "historical Jesus" - that is, the real facts about the person to
whom various Christian gospels refer. The Seminar's on-going project has been
to evaluate the historical significance of every shred of evidence about Jesus
from antiquity (about 30-200 CE). Over the past twenty years more than 200
scholars from North America & beyond have participated in its semi-annual
meetings.”[8] One could hardly think of a more noble endeavor
than to “study the real facts about the historical Jesus”. But, is this attempt a “landmark work
of exceptional quality” as reviewed by Encounter Magazine[9] or
simply “blasphemous” as many right-wing conservatives have exclaimed? What exactly are the conclusions reached by
the 200 imminent scholars paneled for this seminar and how should their
conclusions effect the way we live, teach, and relate to this Jesus of
Nazareth?
[1] Mark 8:27
ESV
[2] Council of Chalcedon. As quoted in The Center for Reformed Theology
and Apologetics. [On Line Source]; available from http://www.reformed.org/documents/index.html?mainframe=chalcedon.html;
internet.
[3] Millard
J Erickson. The Word Became Flesh. (Grand
Rapids: Baker Book House, 1991), 112.
[5] Thomas Jefferson. The Jefferson Bible:
The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1989), vii.
[7] Jon Meachem. “How Jesus Became
Christ: From Resurrection to The Rise of
Christianity,” Newsweek, 28 March
2005, 38.
[8] Jesus Seminar. The Jesus Seminar Forum.
[On Line Source] http://virtualreligion.net/forum/index.html;
Internet.
[9] Robert W
Funk, Roy W. Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar. The
Five Gospels: What did Jesus Really Say? (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco,
1993), i.
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