Who Is Jesus? Disputed Questions and Answers
Overview
New Testament scholars have long debated the historical identity of Jesus and the development of Christology within the church’s history. In Who Is Jesus? Carl Braaten reviews the various historical Jesus quests, arguing that it is time for the current (“third”) quest to admit failure. Against the implication that “the real Jesus has been lost and needs to be found,” Braaten maintains that the only real Jesus is the One presented in the canonical Gospels and that “any other Jesus is irrelevant to Christian faith.” He draws on a wealth of historical resources to address such contentious questions as these:
- What can we actually know about Jesus of Nazareth?
- Did Jesus really rise from the dead?
- Is Jesus unique—the one and only way of salvation?
- Why did Jesus have to die on the cross?
- Was Jesus the founder of the Christian church?
- What does Jesus have to do with politics?
For more works on the historical Jesus, check out the Eerdmans Historical Jesus Studies Collection (5 vols.)
- Reviews the various historical Jesus quests
- Presents the only real Jesus as the One presented in the canonical Gospels
- Draws on a wealth of historical resources
- What Can We Know about Jesus of Nazareth?
- How Do Christians Come to Believe in Jesus?
- Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead?
- Why Do Christians Believe That Jesus Is “Truly God”?
- Is Jesus Unique — The One and Only Way of Salvation?
- Why Did Jesus Have to Die on the Cross?
- Was Jesus the Founder of the Christian Church?
- What Does Jesus Have to Do with Politics?
Top Highlights
“Gerd Theissen has aptly stated, ‘The multiplicity of pictures of Jesus is reason to suspect that they are in reality self-portraits of their authors.’41 A person would have to be incredibly gullible to take them seriously.” (Page 22)
“A plain reading of Scripture mediates a living impression of the ‘whole Christ of the whole Bible’ without any need to appeal to dogmatic or historical authorities. An essential dependence of faith upon the results of historical research would force faith to rely on the erudition of learned professors. Faith that must rest on a prior belief in authority is not the kind of faith that the apostle Paul spoke of when he said that a person is justified by God through faith in Jesus Christ (Rom. 3:22).” (Page 26)
“If any ordinary Christian layperson would ask me what to think about Crossan’s Jesus, my answer would be ‘Who needs him?’ The ideas he puts into Jesus’ mouth would have been well received in the counterculture of the 1960s among the Hippies and Yippies.” (Page 20)
“My view is that the only real Jesus is the One presented in the canonical Gospels and that any other Jesus is irrelevant to Christian faith.” (Page 3)
“He is just another version of the ‘so-called historical Jesus’ who mirrors the author’s social and cultural idealism.” (Page 21)
Few are more highly qualified than Carl Braaten to offer commentary—and enduring perspectives—on the so-called ‘quest for the historical Jesus.’ As Braaten argues, the sundry ‘makeovers’ of Jesus constitute our own attempts to fashion—and reduce—Jesus to our own image rather than to remain in continuity with Scripture and with the historic Christian tradition. Braaten’s conclusion is emphatic: Jesus Christ can never be the end-product of a scholarly ‘quest’; rather, the necessary eyewitness accounts have already been entrusted to Christ’s church through divine revelation. Whether or not we have the fortitude to embrace that witness is another matter.
—J. Daryl Charles, director and senior fellow, Bryan Institute for Critical Thought & Practice
- Title: Who Is Jesus? Disputed Questions and Answers
- Author: Carl E. Braaten
- Publisher: Eerdmans
- Publication Date: 2011
- Pages: 155
- Christian Group: Evangelicals
- Resource Type: Monographs
- Topic: Historical Jesus