Looking for the Jesus of history (Baptist pastor Howard Bess / Wasilla AK Frontiersman)

[struggle4progress]

By Howard Bess
Religion Views
Published on Thursday, August 28, 2008 11:00 PM AKDT

In 1906, Albert Schweitzer published his historic work, “The Quest for the Historical Jesus.” He dared to put into print questions that were being asked widely in scholarly circles. No one else spoke out because their questions called into question the Jesus of church and creed. Scholarship was beholden to church hierarchies ...

A dramatic change has taken place. Today, with a great deal of certainty, we can sort out words that Jesus spoke from the words that were put into the mouth of Jesus two and three generations after his death. We know that many of the reports about the life of Jesus are the purest of fiction.

The result is to see the Jesus of history with much more clarity. We now can see him as a social, political and religious reformer, who was killed because he brought hope to the poor and in the process disturbed the religious and political leaders of his own day. As a result of critical scholarship, the Jesus of history is emerging out from under the cloak of church traditions ...

Out of our experiences and with a fuller awareness of what Jesus said and taught, is it possible to see being a Christian as what we do rather than the creeds that we recite? Is it possible for us to admit that the Gospel of Jesus is about what we ought to do for God and our fellow human beings rather than what we want God to do for us? ...

http://www.frontiersman.com/articles/2008/08/30/faith/doc48b79e03b4178357429584.txt