Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Carl E. Braaten is professor emeritus of systematic theology at Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago and former executive director of the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology.

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Who Is Jesus?

William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company

Contents

By Way of Introduction............................................................1I. What Can We Know about Jesus of Nazareth?......................................5The First Quest of the Historical Jesus...........................................7Theological Criticism of the Quest................................................11The Second Quest of the Historical Jesus..........................................14The Third Quest of the Historical Jesus...........................................18Critics of the "Jesus Seminar"....................................................22II. How Do Christians Come to Believe in Jesus?...................................27Faith and Historical Reason.......................................................30The Testimony of the Holy Spirit..................................................32The Living Christ in the Preaching of the Church..................................35The Whole Christ of the Whole Bible...............................................39The Problem of Historical Revelation..............................................44III. Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead?.........................................49The Resurrection as History.......................................................51Resurrection as Eschatology.......................................................52Implications of Resurrection Hope.................................................55IV. Why Do Christians Believe That Jesus Is "Truly God"?..........................59The Logic of Salvation............................................................61Low and High Christology..........................................................64Why Jesus Is Truly God............................................................68The Real Presence of Christ.......................................................70A Real Incarnation................................................................72V. Is Jesus Unique — The One and Only Way of Salvation?.....................75The Pluralistic Theology of Religion..............................................76The Exclusive Claim of the Gospel.................................................78General and Special Revelation....................................................79Interreligious Dialogue...........................................................81No Salvation Outside Christ.......................................................83Christians and Jews...............................................................87Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism.....................................................88VI. Why Did Jesus Have to Die on the Cross?.......................................93Luther's Theology of the Cross....................................................93The Ransom Theory of the Atonement................................................98The Satisfaction Theory of the Atonement..........................................99The Moral Exemplar Theory.........................................................101Christus Victor: The Classical View...............................................101Who Crucified Jesus?..............................................................102Christ Our Representative.........................................................106VII. Was Jesus the Founder of the Christian Church?...............................109Images of the Church..............................................................111The Four Pillars of the Emerging Church...........................................115Back to the Religion of Jesus?....................................................119The Marks of the Church...........................................................120VIII. What Does Jesus Have to Do with Politics?...................................127Jesus, Revolution, and Politics...................................................127The Kingdom, the Church, and the World............................................129The Way of Critical Participation.................................................134Conclusion........................................................................141Index of Names....................................................................143Index of Subjects.................................................................146

Chapter One

Christianity stands or falls with what it knows about Jesus of Nazareth. If, for example, it could be proved that Jesus never existed, that would presumably spell the end of the Christian faith. For there can be no Christianity without Jesus. Similarly, if the leading scholars of the "Jesus Seminar" were correct in claiming that the first evangelists and apostles produced a false picture of Jesus, that would discredit the church's appeal to the New Testament. Many critical historians are convinced that the first Christians misinterpreted the intentions of Jesus and that now for the first time it is possible, by virtue of new sources and methods, to discover who Jesus really was and what he actually said and did. Such a reconstructed image of Jesus, it is imagined, should give rise to a new Christianity for these modern times. I refer to such scholars as negative critics.

On the other hand, many of the best biblical scholars are convinced that the picture of Jesus that we have in the Gospels, especially Matthew, Mark, and Luke, is quite reliable, based on eyewitness reports, and thus true to the way he was remembered by his earliest followers. They see no need to call for a revision of historic Christianity, its fundamental beliefs and creeds. I refer to such scholars as positive critics.

The negative and positive critics are both engaged in a new quest of the historical Jesus. They agree that the modern quest for the real Jesus of history is historically possible, religiously important, and even theologically necessary. Their motives are decidedly different and they reach quite opposite conclusions. But both sides aim to discover who Jesus really was by using the modern critical methods of historical research. The negative critics believe that the results will pull the rug out from under traditional Christianity. The positive critics believe that the results will rather support the mainstream of the Christian tradition. Liberals and radicals tend to favor the first option, conservatives and traditionalists more naturally the second. N. T. Wright, a prominent British New Testament theologian and Anglican bishop, calls the new quest the "third quest." The new questers address the question: "Is the Jesus of history also the Christ of faith, and is the Christ of faith also the Jesus of history?" The negative critics say "no," appealing to the results of modern historical science. The positive critics say "yes," and aim to prove it by using the same methods. If the same question can be answered in a positive sense by better historico-scientific research, then faith and knowledge can be reconciled in our time. N. T. Wright, one of the positive critics and one of the leaders of the new quest, writes,

The church has no vested interest in preventing people coming up with new ideas about Jesus. Indeed, I shall myself be arguing that ... the real, historical Jesus still has many surprises in store for institutional Christianity.... It is possible to take current questions seriously and...