I just joined this blog and thought I would post something to get started.
I’ve just recently begun exploring Bart Ehrman’s excellent scholarly accounts of the historic Jesus. I’ve especially enjoyed his lecture series on Wondrium, titled “Historical Jesus.”
Ehrman’s core insight that Jesus was a Jewish apocalypticist provides a crucial lens in the search for understanding what Jesus most likely said and did. But it also helps explain why Jesus’s moral and ethical teachings seem so vital, clear, important, and compelling. Even if we don’t subscribe to the apocalyptic belief that the “end of the age” is near, we should “act as if” that were true, by cherishing each day as if it were our last. And, in a microcosmic sense, each of us is, indeed, drawing ever-nearer to the “end of time,” that is, the end of our own life’s journey.
So, after watching the series on Wondrium the thought occurred to me: What better-equipped vessel could a loving God send to earth to teach us to love one another and to love God with all our heart, mind, and strength than an apocalyptic prophet/mediator/instructor like Jesus? The urgency of the apocalypticist’s message seems to be “just what the doctor ordered” for endowing us with ears that can finally hear and eyes that can finally see. To paraphrase the French philosopher Simone Weil, “It is death that gives life its radiance.”
Just some initial thoughts. Thanks for letting me share them.
Welcome aboard Helpi. Interesting comments.
Ehrman’s core insight that Jesus was a Jewish apocalypticist provides a crucial lens in the search for understanding what Jesus most likely said and did. But it also helps explain why Jesus’s moral and ethical teachings seem so vital, clear, important, and compelling. Even if we don’t subscribe to the apocalyptic belief that the “end of the age” is near, we should “act as if” that were true, by cherishing each day as if it were our last. And, in a microcosmic sense, each of us is, indeed, drawing ever-nearer to the “end of time,” that is, the end of our own life’s journey.
We can also begin to appreciate the limitations of Jesus’ thought since a moral system predicated on the imminence of the end can’t be readily applied to the long term needs of a society. But you reminded me of the ideas of literary critic Frank Kermode who wrote a book called ** you do not have permission to see this link **. Kermode asked why “end times” predictions remain so popular when the hopes of the believers are inevitably dashed. He thought the answer was that an apocalyptic expectation sacralized time. And people so needed to live in that sacred time of expectation that they were willing to undergo repeated disappointment just to do so.
Thanks for your reply. I believe widespread adoption of the code of moral/ethical behavior embedded in Jesus’s love- and charity-based teachings would result in a well-ordered society. To that extent his teachings would not seem to entail the limitations to which you may be referring, notwithstanding the apocalyptic orientation of those teachings.
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