The Jesus of HistoryGlover, T. R. (Terrot Reaveley)
Religion
The Jesus of History
Glover, T. R. (Terrot Reaveley)
Jesus Christ -- Historicity
Anyone who will really try to grapple with this problem of the cross
will find very soon the same thing. The first thing that we need to
learn, if our criticism of Jesus is to be sound, is that we are not
at all so near him as we have imagined. He eludes us, goes far out
beyond what we grasp or conceive; and I think the education of the
Christian man or woman begins anew, when we realize how little we
know about Jesus. The discovery of our ignorance is the beginning of
knowledge. Plato long ago said that wonder is the mother of
philosophy, and he was right. John Donne, the English poet, went
farther, and said: "All divinity is love or wonder." When a man then
begins to wonder about Jesus Christ in earnest, Jesus comes to be
for him a new figure. Historical criticism has done this for us; it
has brought us to such a point that the story of these earliest
disciples repeats itself more closely in the experience of their
followers of these days than in any century since the first. We
begin along with them on the friendly, critical, human plane, and
with them we follow him into experiences and realizations that we
never expected. It may be summed up in the familiar words of the
English hymn,
Oh happy band of pilgrims,
If onward ye will tread
With Jesus as your fellow,
To Jesus as your head.
These men begin with him, more or less on a footing of equality; or,
at least, the inequality is very lightly marked. Afterwards it is
emphasized; and they realize it with wonder and with fear, and at
last with joy and gratitude.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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