Neumann The Jesus Puzzle

Facts and Fiction - 280 Theses
1. Auflage 2018
ISBN: 978-3-7460-8740-5
Verlag: BoD - Books on Demand
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 108 Seiten

Jesus of Nazareth is a fascinating figure. His miracles and his sermon from the Kingdom of God are legendary. His death on the cross in Jerusalem touches people all over the world. But what are facts? What is fiction? Refreshingly critical the historian and theologian Neumann, author of severeal books of Jesus, deals with the texts of the bible and shows how facts and fiction can be separated. Behind the beautiful legends appears the historical Jesus, whose true story fascinated people at that time and astonishes them today. Read the Blog https://bibleblog-en.com

Autoren/Hrsg.

Neumann, Johannes

Leseproben

Foreword
I withdraw nothing, unless the Holy Scripture or rational argument prove me wrong. Martin Luther on 18 April 1520 at the Diet at Worms Philosophical thought is often the only ground for understanding and dialogue with those who do not share our faith. Pope John Paul II on 14 September 1998 in the Encyclica Fides et Ratio The story of these theses stretches back a long way. I grew up in an evangelical pastor's house and was also confronted with the GDR's atheist theology, with the result that as a schoolboy I was already interested in the historical basis of Biblical stories. My father studied chemistry during the war, and theology afterwards; instead of the pictures of saints one might expect, his study was hung with photos of Einstein and other Nobel award winners who represent scientific progress during the 20th century. My father's careful scientific approach to theology influenced me more than his basically Pietist religious faith. When I studied theology in Leipzig and East Berlin from 1968 to 1973, Bultmann's demythologising approach felt like a liberation from narrow Pietist religious practice. Jesus' miracles were seen then as the relics of an ancient classical world view; the resurrection was a mythological formulation that needed to be translated in terms of existential philosophy for modern people. However, I then wanted to philosophically analyse the divine itself, which brought me into conflict with the church, so I only completed my degree in the scientific aspects of theology. I left the GDR and settled in the West German Federal Republic in 1975 to study history in Mainz and Hamburg from 1975 to 1979, where I was once again confronted with the Jesus story in my minor subject, Greek and Roman classical history. Contrary to Bultmann's statements, the first century AD was not a mythological age; it was a post-mythological, enlightened era during which science and philosophy flourished and poets used traditional mythological images to examine sensitive issues of their day in cryptic form. Were Jesus' miracles and resurrection historical events after all? And if so, how were they to be understood? I plunged back into study of the Biblical writings. Four hints helped me both then and in later studies: By studying Gottfried Schille in Leipzig, widely known for his commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, I had learnt that the underlying tone in stories passed down and reworked for inclusion in the Gospels and the Acts is often quite different to the final Biblical version. If these stories in the Gospels and the Acts are examined "against the grain", then quite new layers of tradition emerge. At first I concentrated on searching for the historical facts. Then a theologian friend pointed out that the Bible is to be read initially as literature, and as such it can, and must, be compared with other literature (intertextuality). The question of historical facts only arises on the second level. This prompted me to thorough study of classical literature and philology. Homer, Virgil, Ovid, Lucan and other heathen writers were model authors in the classical period and Homer the model for the New Testament authors who wrote in Greek. If the New Testament is compared with their works, it becomes clear that far from being non-literary memoirs, the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles were written by authors familiar with, and in imitation of, the literary conventions of their time. We owe to Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann the insight that reality is always "socially constructed", in other words, embedded in society. This also applies to the Bible's authors, of course. The religious reality they describe follows contemporary social conventions that we are no longer familiar with, so we need to research them. The difference between oral and written tradition must also be taken into account. As long as traditions are passed on orally, the wording can change. As soon as they are written down, a change of meaning can only take place through an interpretation of the tradition. Because the written versions of the Gospels and Acts were preceded by a long period of oral tradition, we must assume that they were adapted to the changing early Christian consciousness before being written down. Sigmund Freud describes human personality in terms of the triangle of Ego, Superego and Id. Of course there are many other definitions of personality in psychology; the details aren't important. Descriptions of Biblical characters often break basic rules of psychological descriptions of human personality, so the historical credibility of the narrative is compromised. A modern supplement of psychological characteristics, however, often leads to decorative novel-like elements that are inconsistent with the facts in the text. Thus Peter becomes the committed, quick-tempered disciple and Jesus becomes the very lovable Messiah. Both descriptions fail to match historical facts. Explaining the Bible without the God hypothesis I aim to scientifically examine and present the Jewish/early Christian narrative of events, the religious and literary history of the Bible. What is the difference to theological Bible research? I search for scientific findings that are equally plausible for Christian and atheist scientists. Above all, I attempt to explain the Bible and early Christianity without the God hypothesis. For this reason, I consider it unscientific to argue that only Christians can understand the truth and beauty of the Christian faith. Nor can I accept the argument that since only Christian sources for early Christianity exist, we must therefore adopt the Christian view of these Christian sources. I would express the task I have set myself as follows: to research and present the origins of the Bible and early Christianity in relation to the history of events, ideas and literature as events within the natural world. Necessary rational truths and random historical truths The real problem that historians of early Christianity have to solve lies deeper, however. If Christianity is not ordained by a higher power, is its emergence random or a historical necessity? Is it, in Lessing's words, a random historical truth or a necessary rational truth? To put it another way, is the emergence of Christianity a necessary requirement of the time or rather a random event? Paul says in Ephesians 1: 10 that God sent his son when the right time, the Kairos, was fulfilled. The New Testament seems to be of the opinion that it was the deity's free will to save mankind through his son Jesus; however, God's goodness also forced him, so to speak, to carry out his intention. The early Christians fixed the change of the astrological age to the change of the spring sign of the Zodiac, from Aries to Pisces. What do the historians say? In the period of Constantine it is not hard to conclude that the Christianity of the 4th century AD was best suited to becoming an empire-wide religion. But what about the early Christianity of the 1st century AD, a small Jewish sect, so unimportant that Flavius Josephus overlooked it? Or should we perhaps reconsider? Didn't Jesus himself lay the foundation for Roman Christianity, long before Paul? Is Christianity perhaps more than a Jewish offshoot after all? Is Palestine, a religious melting pot, a pool of cultural and religious influences, perhaps necessarily the breeding ground for a new religion? Emperor Augustus reshaped Rome into an empire when it was sunk in civil war and set new social standards; was this era perhaps also the compelling reason to found a new religion? The clash of Eastern and Western cultures took place in little Galilee on a model scale and much earlier than in the rest of the Roman Empire, and reconciliation was needed much earlier; is it possible that this was the cultural and religious model for the Roman Empire that faced the same conflicts at a later date? If the transformation of the Roman Empire into an imperial monarchy was made necessary by historical circumstances - in other words it was a historical necessity - was not the emergence of Christianity on the eastern edge of the empire, on the dividing line to the hostile Parthians who ruled the Orient, also a historical necessity, dictated by historical conditions? This was the view of Paul and the early Christians, at any rate, and they named the inevitability of what they observed and experienced "God's will". The emergence, evolution and historical development of Christianity was considered to be a rational truth, seen by Hegel as the unfolding in history of the world spirit - viewed as Christian, of course. This view prevailed up to the period of German idealism and the liberal theology of the 19th century. Then the First World War broke out, and that changed everything. The Christian cultural consensus was challenged. History was no longer perceived as a rational development, but as a chaotic process. Protestant theology held on to the view that God guides history, although it was obviously no longer rationally guided but happened chaotically. God's will could therefore no longer be understood as a historical necessity, so instead the theologians emphasised the erratic in God's will, God's freedom, and placed God in opposition to the chaos of the world and world history. What did the changed view of early Christianity mean? After the First World War, God's sending his son into the world was no longer viewed in Protestant theology as a rational decision by God, but as a totally free decision of a sovereign deity freed from all historical constraints. In other words, God could have sent Jesus 500 years earlier or 1,000 years later. The necessary rational truth of early Christianity became the random historical truth of...