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authorCamil Staps2015-09-26 20:48:48 +0200
committerCamil Staps2015-09-26 20:48:48 +0200
commitc045139b5f536269585ddd462c1337f84d9b83f6 (patch)
tree0472f57a2817f999f0e0d3c52734225d1662f19c
parentDiscussion revelation (diff)
Summ. chap. 5 till Trinity
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+\begin{chapter}{Jesus, the Fullness of Revelation}
+ Jesus is the \emph{full} revelation of God (Jn.~1:18)i, although He Himself only claimed to proclaim God's Kingdom (and not Himself). What can we say about the inner coherence of and historical reasons to support this claim?
+
+ \subsubsection*{The Gospels}
+ The Gospels are largely based on eyewitness accounts, on each other and on an unknown source Q. Matthew, Mark and Luke are similar and called synoptic, while John's Gospel emerged from decades of prayerful, theological contemplation, merging \emph{memory} of Jesus and \emph{experience} of the Risen Christ. Luke also presents the Risen Christ, in the Acts of the apostles. It can be argued that the first three evangelist were no eyewitnesses themselves, while John was: this would explain why the first three Gospels are mainly storytelling rather than interpreting -- Matthew, Mark and Luke would try to remain as close as possible to the eyewitness accounts.
+
+ To verify whether sayings ascribed to Jesus, we use the following criteria:
+
+ \begin{description}
+ \item[Embarrassment] of the early Church (e.g. the baptism by John), because if not from Jesus, why would they be included?
+ \item[Multiple attestation] in \emph{independent} traditions, for obvious reasons.
+ \item[Discontinuity] from Jewish and early Christian tradition, like Jesus' title `the Son of Man'.
+ \item[Coherence] with already established knowledge about Jesus.
+ \item[Deadly opposition] to distinguish Jesus from simply a teacher or some prophet.
+ \end{description}
+
+ After this `stage one' tradition, revelation of Jesus is communicated by word of mouth (`stage two') until they were written down by the evangelists (`stage three'). In any case, the Gospels are historically credible because they are largely based on eyewitness accounts given until far in the first century, for Mark and John mainly Peter.
+
+ It is also not realistic that there was a group of early Christians making up stories about Jesus, because then they would have included positions on some debates of the early Church as sayings of Jesus to support their own point of view.
+
+ \subsubsection*{The preaching of the Kingdom}
+ Jesus revealed the Kingdom as a present or future `new age' to liberate sinful men and women from the grip of evil and bless them with salvation. He did this by telling \emph{parables} and performing \emph{miracles}. We don't know for sure what exact impact these two things had on Jesus' contemporaries, but for sure they hint at Jesus being divine Wisdom.
+
+ Miracles bring up four tasks for theologians:
+
+ \begin{itemize}
+ \item To \emph{define} them appropriately.
+ \item To \emph{defend their existence} against people excluding miracles in principle. Some people argue here that it is inherent to a miracle that it can never be supported by enough evidence to support it logically.
+ \item To \emph{defend their existence} against people claiming miracles are a product of the imagination of the first Christians. This can be done by saying that for example in Mark miracles are strongly intertwined with the rest of the narrative, and can thus be considered true by the principle of \emph{coherence} above. Also, miracles enjoy \emph{multiple attestation}, from among others Mark, Q and Jewish sources.
+ \item To \emph{establish their significance}: Jesus repeatedly emphasises that to believe in miracles is not the most important. The most important is to believe in `Him Whom the Father has sent'.
+ \end{itemize}
+
+ \subsubsection*{The Kingdom in person}
+ The coming of Jesus is inseparably connected with the coming of the Kingdom. This becomes clear in all synoptic Gospels. In the Gospels it is only others who directly call Jesus the king of the Jews or the Messiah, but He Himself also obliquely hints at it.
+
+ The language of `coming from God' and being `sent by God' is used often in this context, sometimes together. The usage of these words is numerous enough and different enough from Old Testament prophets, to assume that is how Jesus Himself understood His mission.
+
+ Jesus, other than the Old Testament prophets, taught with authority:
+
+ \begin{itemize}
+ \item Over the observation of the Sabbath (Mk.~2:23-28; but note that some scholars ascribe verse 28 to Mark or a pre-Markan redactor).
+ \item Over the regulations of the Torah: the oral law imposed by scribes and Pharisees He showed to be incoherent with the Torah (Mk.~7:10-12), the written law He extended, clarified and changed (most notably Mt.~5:21-48; mainly considering the food laws Mk.~7:15,19). Some scholars don't think it's likely that Jesus abolished all food laws at once, and ascribe the sayings concerning those laws to later editors.
+ \item Over the Temple (Mk.~11:15-17; 14:57-59) -- the original saying is untraceable, but had something to do with a new relationship with God, for which Jerusalem as central place wasn't needed any more.
+ \end{itemize}
+
+ We also see Jesus' authority in His forgiveness of sins and His new name for God, ``Abba''. While Jesus preached the coming of the Kingdom, the Old Testament language of God as king was abolished in the New Testament and replaced by this ``Father dear''.
+
+ Considering the \emph{final} salvation and Kingdom, Jesus clearly shows this is given by Him (Lk.~22:39-40; 12:8-9).
+
+ \subsubsection*{The Trinity revealed?}
+ To be done. %todo
+
+ \subsubsection*{Revelation past, present and future}
+ To be done. %todo
+
+\end{chapter}
+
diff --git a/summary.tex b/summary.tex
index 97b4eb3..d699f83 100644
--- a/summary.tex
+++ b/summary.tex
@@ -18,6 +18,7 @@
\input{sum-chap-2.tex}
\input{sum-chap-3.tex}
\input{sum-chap-4.tex}
+\input{sum-chap-5.tex}
\end{document}