Schlagwort: Gospels

Von Christian / N. T. Wright

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In the first part of the series, we realized that the essential story of the Gospels has been forgotten and what role the creeds, for example, have played in this. I am using the book by N.T. Wright for this: How God Became King: The Forgotten Story of the Gospels (Deutsche Übersetzung: Reich Gottes, Kreuz, Kirche. Die vergessene Story der Evangelien)

This section is about how various overemphasizations or fixations on certain aspects of the gospels, while popular, did not lead to a satisfactory overall understanding of the gospels.

Jesus without the creeds?

The creeds address mainly Jesus‘ birth, his death and resurrection and related teachings. What remains when attempts have been made to give more weight to all the other parts of the gospels? Since the 18th century, it has become fashionable to approach the gospels with the ‚historical question‘: Did it really happen? That is the question to this day. And the intellectual answer was and often still is: Yes, he existed, the so-called ‚historical Jesus‘. But the rest never happened. All the miracles and what the creeds contain comes from the church, which wanted to express its own faith. What remains of Jesus then is one of three possibilities:

1. A revolutionary who took on the Roman Empire to rebuild a Jewish state.
2. Or a wild, apocalyptic visionary who expected the end of the world.
3. Or a mild-mannered, reasonable teacher who taught the brotherhood of all people under the Father God.

Or a combination of all of them. However, he was mistaken. The Romans killed him, the end of the world did not come, and even his disciples did not necessarily stand out in the centuries that followed for their mild, reasonable thinking. And that has essentially been the direction of skeptical or liberal thinkers over the last two hundred years and thousands of academic and popular books. For many, this is the new ‚orthodox‘ belief.

The idea that Jesus came to teach a new, simple, clear ethic of being nice to people, without any “dogmatic” claims or “supernatural” elements, is so deeply embedded in Western culture that one sometimes despairs, like a gardener faced with ground ivy, of ever uprooting it. To this day there seems a ready market right across the Western world for books that say that Jesus was just a good Jewish boy who would have been horrified to see a “church” set up in his name, who didn’t think of himself as “God” or even the “Son of God,” and who had no intention of dying for anyone’s sins—the church has gotten it all wrong. The authors of such books routinely proclaim themselves “neutral,” “unbiased,” “impartial,” or “independent.” As if.

N.T. Wright How God Became King, Chapter 2

The social gospel of Jesus?

At least this view of Jesus‘ life, without the supernatural elements found in the creeds, also has a positive side. Did Jesus not, in anticipation of what the ‚Kingdom of God‘ would do, also heal the sick, feed the hungry, relieve the poor of their hardship and help widows and orphans to get justice? And towards the end of the 19th century, this became the movement of “Christian socialism”. The problem with this is not only theological – why do people pick and choose certain aspects of the Gospels and ignore others? The real problem is that the high point of this movement was long ago and yet the same problems still exist – even in the Western, Christian world.

Perhaps we should try to connect the ‚middle part‘ of the Gospels about the life of Jesus with the other part that is emphasized in the creeds.

Did Jesus talk about himself?

The ‚liberal‘ reading of the Gospels has led to yet another idea today: Jesus seems to have spoken about God, and his followers and the early church then spoke about Jesus. In particular, the creeds seem to be fixated on the precise ontological relationship of Jesus to God the Father. Something Jesus, according to the Gospels, would not have done in that way. This can be taken to the point where there is a sense of superiority to this point of view. N. T. Wright puts it succinctly:

“You would-be orthodox Christians stick your noses in the air, because you believe in the divinity of Jesus, whereas we modern historically conscious readers can stick our noses in the air, because we have discovered that Jesus himself never thought of himself that way!” The church’s worship of Jesus can thus be “exposed,” so it is thought, as a falsification of what Jesus himself would have said or thought.

N.T. Wright How God Became King, Chapter 2

As is so often the case, there is a grain of truth in this claim. However, it does not stand up to a closer analysis of the texts. This attitude suggests that because Jesus spoke about God, he said nothing at all about himself and his role. But this is not the case. When reading the gospels, we must not only consider the words on the surface, but also the deeper levels of meaning. This will become clearer when we talk about how the evangelists referred to the Old Testament and what Jesus‘ words mean in this context.

The Hidden Underlying Challenge: Theocracy

Our perception of the gospels could unconsciously be strongly influenced by the Age of Enlightenment since the 18th century. Over time, God – whatever God may be – has been increasingly ‚transferred‘ to a higher plane. At best to a place of honor, but far away. Far removed from directing the destinies of mankind. That was now left to people themselves. In other words, they didn’t want any hint of theocracy – a government of God – under any circumstances. This separation of church and state may seem plausible after the experiences of history. However, it led even more strongly to faith or religion becoming a matter of private conduct.

You can see that for yourself if you reflect on Jesus‘ prayer: “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:10) How should that be done on earth? How much do the Enlightenment influence our thinking? And how much the Gospels? The text reads in full: “Your kingdom come. Your will be done, as in heaven, so on earth.” (Matthew 6:10 Zurich). For some of the great thinkers of the Enlightenment, this was either a violent military revolution or the end of the world. These ideas could unconsciously prevent us from recognizing the message that the evangelists wanted to convey.

The Orthodox Response

Enlightenment and general skepticism pushed the church onto the defensive. The question in the room was: Was Jesus really divine? The result was that people read the gospels to find proof. And they found it: miracles! At least that’s what they thought, and some still reason that way today. But are ‚miracles‘ really proof of Jesus‘ divinity? Is that the essential reason for the text of the gospels between birth and cross? However, what may sound convincing at first glance overlooks the fact that the Old Testament already speaks of miracles performed by Moses, Elijah and Elisha, without in the least claiming that any of them were divine.

So there were and are a lot of different answers to the question of why the evangelists wrote their gospels in this way and not in another. And although they differ so much and are partly contrary, they seem more like a reaction to the context and developments of their time than like inadequate answers.

In the next part, we will therefore look at further answers as to why the ‚middle part‘ of the Gospels exists at all. By taking a closer look at these, we will recognize why they are not completely wrong, but nevertheless inadequate. Having recognized so many different ideas that can unconsciously block our view, we will then be able to hear the Gospels with the ears of the first-century disciples.

By Christian / N. T. Wright

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The Gospels have been read and studied for two millennia now. Surely everything must have been said and written about them by now, right? Is it even possible to discover anything new in them? Even more. In this series, we will consider arguments that show that we even have to rediscover the gospel itself today, the essential story of the Gospels, because it has been forgotten. The weight and attention has been put on various other topics, so that the central message has been lost. These other voices have become so loud and popular, so to speak, that the central theme, which should be supported by the other voices, was no longer perceived.

However, the topic is not only important in terms of personal belief, where at least for ‚Christians‘ the gospels should play a central role. It also helps us to set the right focus and accept different views. Why should you deny others their faith, call them heretics, apostates or ‚false religion‘ when the different views do not even concern the central message of the gospel?

But how could it ever come to pass that what the four evangelists so urgently wanted to communicate to others was so completely forgotten? Among other things, creeds – as good as they are or were meant to be – played a role in this, as we shall see in a moment.

“And why, may I ask, has no one but you noticed this in two thousand years?” I haven’t noticed it at all. What I have become more and more aware of, however, is that for many teachings or even belief systems, only a few Bible texts are used or overemphasized. Or the texts come predominantly or exclusively from one Bible book, some letters of Paul, etc. And how do the Old and New Testaments fit together? Beyond ‚everything points prophetically to Jesus‘, which is not the case at all. If the texts of the New Testament so often refer to the Old or use or reinterpret their images and terms, was there a radical change, something completely new? Or do the two form a unity beyond superficial references? In fact, diligent biblical scholars have made interesting contributions to this, which I will discuss again and again.

One of them is N. T. Wright, who observed something over and over again that eventually led to this book:

In this series, I would like to take up the most important arguments from the book so that everyone can form their own opinion. So let’s go back to the roots and read the gospels in the context of the first-century disciples – without having our 21st-century context and any creed in mind. Otherwise, there is a great danger that we will read into them or believe we can find in them teachings that were not developed until centuries later.

And what happened … in between?

N. T. Wright introduces the question of this series with a personal experience as a teenager that everyone can easily relate to. He wanted to do a series of studies on Jesus with others, all based on why-questions: Why was Jesus born? Why did Jesus live? Why did Jesus die? Why did Jesus rise? Why will he return?

If you stop for a moment and think about the answers to the questions, you will come up with a few ideas for almost all of them. And you will recognize a connection to central teachings of Christianity. Only with one question could it have been difficult: Why did Jesus live? Not a difficult question, do you think? Now, would your answers to the other questions or your hope change at all if he had died ‚for our sins‘ shortly after his birth? Or if he had been active for 30 1/2 years instead of 3 1/2 years?

Perhaps you now have a few reasons in mind. We will discuss some of them later and see that on closer inspection they are not as convincing as one might think. Take, for example, the reason that Jesus, despite all temptations, had to lead a God-pleasing life without sin. Good. Mark, Matthew, Luke and John could have stated that in one sentence. But that is not what the bulk of the text is about. Another example: Jesus showed us how to live. But that is not described in the majority of the text of the gospels either.

In fact, even the earliest creeds show an interesting pattern. Take, for example, the short fourth-century creed we know as the Apostles‘ Creed:

I believe…in Jesus Christ, God’s only son, our Lord;
Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit;
born of the Virgin Mary;
Suffered under Pontius Pilate;
Was crucified, dead and buried;
He descended into hell;
On the third day he rose again from the dead;
He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of God, the Father almighty;
From thence he will come to judge the living and the dead.

N.T.Wright How God Became King, chapter 1, ‚Apostel’s Creed‘

So many details and yet nothing about Jesus‘ life between his birth and crucifixion! Now compare that with the four gospels. How much text is devoted to the birth and baptism of Jesus? How much to his crucifixion and resurrection? Only a fraction of the text of the gospels:

How did it come about? Before anyone is quick to jump to the conclusion that the apostasy announced in the New Testament is the reason, we should be aware of a simple mechanism. Initially, the g ospels – like other letters – were regularly read aloud. The believers prayed the ‚Our Father‘ and knew the details of the gospels, which they understood as a basis. The creeds served only as a framework to clearly distinguish important basic teachings from other views, such as those of the Gnostics. There were numerous controversies on various topics. And when these were decided – however, these early formulas became part of creeds and were hung on the clothesline like washed laundry, so to speak. N.T. Wright formulates the change as follows:

The church provided a “rule of faith” by which, supposedly, to understand the scriptures. But the “rule” in question – the developing creeds and the early formulas that led up to them – turned out to ignore the central theme of the four gospels. Notice what then happens. At some point, perhaps not long after the creeds were written, the clothesline turned into a teaching aid. The list of earlier controversies became a syllabus. “These,” the church declared, “are the things you need to know about God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and so on.” And at this point we have crossed a line. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John say, “These are the things you need to know about Jesus.” The creeds, when taken out of their liturgical context where they belong with the gospels and the Lord’s Prayer and used instead as the basis for a teaching program, say: “No, these are the things you need to know.”

N.T.Wright How God Became King, chapter 1

Over time, the center – the story of the gospels – was lost and the results of the controversies came to the fore. This does not make the creeds per se wrong or unnecessary or useless. But they must not replace the story of the gospels.

In fact, many would only prove ‚the gospel‘ with Paul’s texts such as Romans 3 and Galatians 2-3 – as the early reformers did – without even once referring to one of the gospels!

It isn’t just that we’ve all misread the gospels, though I think that’s broadly true. It is more that we haven’t really read them at all. We have fitted them into the framework of ideas and beliefs that we have acquired from other sources.

I want in this book to allow them, as far as I can, to speak for themselves. Not everyone will like the result.

N.T.Wright How God Became King, chapter 1

Well, not everyone will like the result, but it promises to be quite interesting – at least I think so.