Thoughtful Reflections on Faith and Life
At the beginning of twentieth century, Albert Schweitzer wrote a book called, The Quest of the Historical Jesus. In this book (which I highly recommend), Schweitzer guides the reader through the post-enlightenment attempts of (mostly German) scholars to peel back legend and church tradition to get to the real or historical Jesus. What Schweitzer reports on … Read More “The Historical Jesus: Five Views” »
This is the last instalment in my series of responses to Robert Price’s Deconstructing Jesus. If you know his book, you will see that I am skipping his chapter on “Cruci-fiction.” The reason for this is that it was short and I didn’t find much that I was interested in responding to. In his last … Read More “The Historicized Jesus?” »
In the sixth chapter of Robert Price’s Deconstructing Jesus, he focuses on the work of René Girard. The foundation of Girard’s theory is that there is literary theme of a crowd or mob grabbing an individual and slaying him. Later reflection leads the crowd to feel relief that their sin was released upon the dead individual. … Read More “Sacred Scapegoat” »
In this post, I look at the fifth chapter of Robert Price’s Deconstructing Jesus. This chapter brings up some of the same concerns as were found in previous chapters. In this chapter, Price shares some possible sources that are supposed to get us as close to the origin of Christianity as possible. Price puts a … Read More “The Lost Gospel” »
Continuing through Robert Price’s Deconstructing Jesus, we find more of Price’s assertions about the earliest beliefs of the Christians. Price attempts to argue that because of anachronisms, “the gospel traditions in question must be removed from consideration as evidence for the historical Jesus.” (p. 97) What are these anachronisms? They are the ways the Gospels … Read More “Messiah as Mishnah” »
This is my response to the third chapter of Robert Price’s Deconstructing Jesus. Price, still arguing for a wide diversity among the earliest Christians, presents three “Christ cults.” When you hear the word ‘cult,’ don’t get all worked up. He is not using the popular definition of cult but rather the original meaning as a … Read More “The Christ Cults” »
In the second chapter of Deconstructing Jesus, Price continues to attempt a picture of the earliest church that differed on major issues. Price makes much of Q, the hypothetical document that contains sayings common to Matthew and Luke but absent from Mark. I don’t have a problem with Q (listen to this podcast episode I … Read More “The Jesus Movements” »
I am currently reading Robert Price’s Deconstructing Jesus and I thought I would blog my reflections on each chapter. Although the book was published in 2000, Price is one of the few Jesus Mythicists who has a PhD in a relative field, and so he deserves some attention. The first chapter is called “Reconstructing Christian … Read More “Reconstructing Christian Origins” »
