Jesus and Salvation Series (Part 6A)

Questions About a “Revised Jesus” and “Revised Gospel”

Welcome to the Summer 2006 study for the Koinonia Class of Calvary Baptist Church, Denver, Colorado. We’re looking at the issue of Jesus and Salvation, using the book “Is Jesus The Only Savior” [James R. Edwards, Is Jesus The Only Savior? (Grand Rapids/Cambridge: 2005)]. We encourage each person to buy a copy and follow along.

In my last email introducing the latest post (A Seminar on The Jesus Seminar), I talked about a “revised Jesus” and a “revised Gospel” as the product of The Jesus Seminar. The “revised Jesus” is what I also described as the “acceptable Jesus” that I see presented in the “secular media”.

In response to the email and the article, I received an email with the following comments and questions. (I copied the email verbatim and just re-formatted it for better readability online.)

Rudy:

1. Perhaps "the revised Jesus" you refer to is the Jesus of the four gospels.


2. Do you suppose that "the acceptable Jesus" you mention is the Jesus of councils and creeds and systematic theologies (i.e. orthodoxy)?


3. Can we know "the real Jesus" through countless layers of interpretation and reinterpretation, beginning with the many and various interpretations of Jesus in the very first century?


4. Is there a distinct difference (and unbridgeable chasm) between "the real Jesus" (i.e. the actual person and what he actually did) and "the Christ of faith" (i.e. who we believe Jesus was and what he means to us)?


5. Should we dismiss the work of reputable scholars, many of them sincere believers (e.g. Marcus Borg, John Dominic Crossan), without giving their methodologies and conclusions careful (and prayerful) consideration?


6. If they are partly, even mostly, correct, how does that threaten our faith and practice as Christians?


7. Why do we need faith if doctrine provides all the answers?


8. Are all media outlets not in the service of "doctrinally-correct" authorities "secular" and not to be trusted?


9. Are such blanket statements helpful to our search for deeper truth? Just wondering.

Grace and Peace, Bruce Greer.

I really appreciate such comments and questions. This study is designed to be a dialogue, and with such comments we will all learn more. I won’t be able to answer the entire email this time, so look for follow-up posts in the next few days.

It may help if you copy and print the last post (A Seminar on The Jesus Seminar) and this one, so you can see how these questions go with the original article.

For now, just three comments on the email I received. First, thanks Bruce, for sending the comments and allowing me to share them with the other participants in the study.

Second, it is clear that there are two quite different perspectives here. Edwards’ book takes one viewpoint (which I share); and Bruce’s questions take a different viewpoint. It’s not just a cliché to say that even though we disagree, we can agree to disagree agreeably.

And third, I’ll intentionally leave specific comments on the questions for the next post, giving everyone time to understand the issues and formulate responses for themselves. To leave a comment that everyone can see, click on the lightly-colored word “comments” below to bring up the comments page (or you can also email your comments to me as Bruce did, and I will share them with the group).