"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed" – Blaise Pascal
Over the holiday I read Dale Allison Jr.’s The Historical Christ and the Theological Jesus. Allison is a well-regarded historical Jesus scholar with a number of tomes to his name and a practicing Christian. This book is his attempt to come to terms with how his work as a historian affects his personal faith. As …
Continue reading Dale Allison on the limits of the quest for the historical Jesus
In my post on Marcus Borg’s view of Jesus and eschatology, I asserted that if Jesus did expect an imminent supernatural in-breaking of some sort, then he was wrong, a conclusion that would disconcert many Christians. This might have been too categorical of a statement. In his book The Historical Christ and the Theological Jesus, …
Michael Westmoreland-White, riffing on this Christian Century article, asks folks to list “five essential theological works” from the past 25 years. (Actually, I think there was a meme on a similar topic circulating the theo-blogosphere a few years back.) Anyway, not being a theologian, or professional churchly type of any sort, I’m not really qualified …
I found Dale Allison’s book on the historical Jesus stimulating enough that I thought I should get another perspective. I had read Marcus Borg’s Jesus: A New Vision several years ago, but didn’t really remember much of it. So I thought it might be worth re-visiting. Though he comes to different conclusions than Allison (Borg …
Continuing the series on Dale Allison’s The Historical Christ and the Theological Jesus (previous posts here and here). Despite his defense of the general picture of Jesus offered in the gospels, Allison is not out just to comfort conservatives or other traditional believers. For starters, as we’ve seen, he’s dubious that we can determine with …
Continue reading The apocalyptic Jesus and the divine Christ
A Thinking Reed 