Character Of Jesus Research Articles

From Noble Death to Crucified Messiah

In his excellent study of crucifixion, Martin Hengel has documented the harsh reality of the penalty in antiquity and has shown that it was seldom portrayed in detail or in an idealized manner. These facts are important and should be kept constantly in mind. They make all the more pressing the question why a detailed narrative of Jesus' death was composed and lead us to look closely at the way the story is told. An ancient opponent of Christianity, Celsus, provides an interesting illustration of both the cultural situation and the literary question. On the one hand, he expressed the general view that crucifixion was the most ignominious and shameful type of death. On the other hand, he made charges that were based, not so much on the disgrace of death by crucifixion as such, but on the way the story is told, on the character of Jesus as revealed by the narrative. As is well known, in part of his work entitled On the True Doctrine, he employed the device of a fictitious Jewish interlocutor. Alluding to the scene in Gethsemane, this critic challenged the teaching that Jesus was a god or the son of the most high God because he hid and tried to escape when the Jews decided that he was worthy of death. Further, this so-called god was betrayed by his own disciples, a criticism that applies to several scenes of the passion narrative. Returning to the Gethsemane story, the interlocutor attacks the theory that Jesus foreknew and intended his sufferings on the basis of his portrayal as mourning and lamenting and praying that this cup might pass from him.

The Elusive Christ: a New Reading of the Fourth Gospel

In this article, Stibbe examines one of the distinctive aspects of John's characterization of Jesus, namely, Jesus' elusiveness. He looks first of all at the elusiveness of Jesus' movements. He then looks at Jesus' elusive language. Stibbe suggests that the intertextual background for John's elusive Christ lies in the Wisdom literature, Deutero-Isaiah and Mark's Gospel. He also offers an explanation on historical grounds, arguing that the elusiveness of the Johannine community and indeed of the historical Jesus himself lies behind this narrative presentation. Theological factors are also considered. In conclusion, Stibbe suggests that John's portrayal of Jesus as the elusive Christ accounts for the excitement of a first reading of John's story, and also for the seduction of the reader into subsequent rereadings.

Symbolic Eschatology and the Apocalypticism of Q

The relationship of the preaching and teaching of Jesus to apocalyptic has been a vexed one ever since Albert Schweitzer's assault on the liberal “Lives of Jesus” and his advocacy of consistent eschatology along with his characterization of Jesus’ teachings as interim ethics. While many of the details of Schweitzer's hypothesis failed to be persuasive, his insistence that Jesus’ activity be seen in the context of apocalypticism has made a profound impact on subsequent historical Jesus scholarship and, in spite of his own noncommital stance with regard to the Two Document Hypothesis, on the theological characterization of Q.

The Historical Character of Jesus and its Pedagogic Uses

The Historical Character of Jesus and its Pedagogic Uses

Book Review: VI. New Testament: The Character of Jesus

Book Review: VI. New Testament: The Character of Jesus

What the Nazareth Years Did for Jesus

JESUs emerged from Nazareth a mature personality, a personality of a mold sufficiently large not to be overwhelmed by the consciousness of messiahship (at whatever time that consciousness began), and possessed of a moral character sufficiently well established to be able to withstand the fierce temptations that, in the nature of the case, such a Messiah as Jesus had to meet. We do not sufficiently realize that Jesus' conception of what a Messiah ought to be, and of the kind of kingdom that he ought to found, was the product of his personal religious life and character. To Jesus messiahship was not a mere office whose functions were clearly defined and such as could be performed by any naturally forceful and intellectually competent messianic aspirant. Jesus wrought out a conception of messiahship that was essentially moral and that was an expression of his own moral character. He had a profound and unique personal religious experience that no cheap conception of messiahship could ever satisfy. He became the kind of Messiah that he was because of the personal character that he possessed. This personal religious life and character had been previously developed in Nazareth. It is not to be supposed that all development had ceased before Jesus' baptism. The subsequent months, culminating in so profound a personal experience as that of Gethsemane and the death-suffering on the cross, cannot have been without effect upon the personal religious life and character of Jesus as well as upon the destiny of the world. But the fact remains that at the beginning of his public life he was possessed of a mature personal character capable of forming a divine conception of messiahship and of resisting fierce temptation. This is what we should expect, for we are coming

The Character of Jesus: A Basis of Confidence in the Gospel Record

The Character of Jesus: A Basis of Confidence in the Gospel Record