Peter Schafer wrote a book entitled THE JEWISH JESUS, but he says little about Jesus and a lot about esoteric views of some Jews about heavenly figures and Jewish prophets who had ideas and beliefs which hardly seem mainstream Jewish. I wrote him but got no answer, probably because I was not especially deferential towards him. This only reminds me that perhaps only Jewish scholars, like Joseph Klausner, can really deal with Jesus authentically, not because they believe in him of course, but because they understand better than Christians how Jesus probably thought about things, like the apocalyptic breakthrough God might make into the world of humanity.
While it is hard to understand a man who lived 2000 years ago, those with a deep knowledge of his milieu are more likely than those who have pre-conditioned beliefs or unbeliefs about him. There is among Christians, especially in America among the so-called evangelicals, a belief in a Jesus who could not have existed, who could not establish a personal relationship with living humans, and could not in any sense save anyone from anything. So for me Christians remain the most removed from common sense of any religious believer of any sort, both traditional Christians and evangelical do it yourself Christians. I find it difficult to refrain from condemnation since everything about these people called Christians is a condemnation of my own background, my own education, and my own long life of experience; I turned 85 just a few weeks ago.
ravitchn said
. . . So for me Christians remain the most removed from common sense of any religious believer of any sort, both traditional Christians and evangelical do it yourself Christians. . .
That is a pretty bold statement. Have you met many religious believers who were not Christian for comparison?
Of course I have met Jews of various sorts and Muslims as well. I had a Muslim roommate for one year at the Princeton Graduate School. He and his friends taught me a good deal about Islam, good and bad. I used to tell my university students that if Jesus returned to earth he would find the most congenial environment in a mosque, certainly not in a Christian church of any kind and perhaps even in a synagogue of any type.
All the controversies, the squabbles, the interpretations, the mistakes of scholars about Christianity and all its several parts are the result of some obvious truths few are willing to entertain.
1. The Jews did no one a favor by composing the Old Testament. Nothing in it is consistent, completely inspiring, or meaningful to anyone but an ancient Jew. It is essentially a meditation of the divine relationship to Israel, its decline, and its possible restoration. Non-Jews are not welcome here, nor should they be.
2. Jesus, whoever he was was a Jew; he had many ways of interpreting what he had been taught, but as a peasant of sorts we cannot be sure what he had been taught and what he really believed. Schweitzer chooses for himself what Jesus might have been about, mainly LOVING YOUR NEIGHBOR despite everything else.
3. The writings of Paul were designed to bring something of the Old Testament to the pagans, but Paul had his own notion of what to teach the pagans, and while Israel was supposed in some sense to bring God to the pagans no one knew exactly what or how this was to be done. Paul did it by largely abandoning the Old Testament in favor of something not distant from some form of Gnosticism.
4. The rest of the New Testament and the development of Christian theology was an unsatisfactory blending of Jewish religion with pagan philosophy, the result of which was and remains forever confused.
5. If we could discard the OT, except perhaps for some psalms and poetry, and also discard the NT which contains the same difficulties we might be much better of — with a sort of secular humanism based on LOVING YOUR NEIGHBOR. Loving your neighbor is hard but not as hard as trying to make sense of any or all of the so-called Scriptures. A man or woman who loves the neighbor is better than the most learned nonsense theologians and biblical scholars can invent.
SO IF YOU TAKE ME SERIOUSLY THIS BLOG SHOULD BE ELIMINATED AND PROFESSOR EHRMAN SHOULD RETIRE!
ravitchn said
Of course I have met Jews of various sorts and Muslims as well. I had a Muslim roommate for one year at the Princeton Graduate School. He and his friends taught me a good deal about Islam, good and bad. I used to tell my university students that if Jesus returned to earth he would find the most congenial environment in a mosque, certainly not in a Christian church of any kind and perhaps even in a synagogue of any type.
Well, I know quite a few very reasonable Christians (mostly not of the evangelical sort), quite a few Jewish people (practicing and secular), and agnostic/atheists (you may not consider atheism to be a religion in any meaningful sense, although it is certainly a view about religion if not directly a religious view). If you think that Kosher is in any way common-sense, I don’t know what to tell you. Quite of few of the agnostic/atheists are convinced that technology will save us from ourselves (when I think that observation and common-sense say that, at best, it is a mixed bag), and a few that I know believe that people are innately good and that what makes them bad is any form of organization. (Exactly how society would function without organization of any kind is where they depart from common-sense.) You are, of course, welcome to retain your impression (especially if it makes you feel better).
PS – let me note that I am not arguing that Christianity is sensible, merely that it is not uniquely subject to large doses of nonsense. Humans are not rational animals, we are animals that rationalize (that is, we typically decide what we want to believe, then find the information and interpretations that confirm that bias). I find this observation to be true of pretty much everyone, and I do not exempt myself . . . although I try to be aware of when it is leading me into danger.
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