WHO WAS JESUS?
By James D.G. Dunn
ISBN 978 0 281 076 604
These come from a new series published by SPCK – all 44pp, £3.99 – with a team of prominent Anglican authors, all with strong academic credentials and writing ability.
I am glad I was asked to read this clear, sparkling and erudite book: it sharpened my thinking about the historical Jesus. I was also glad that the answer to the question was ‘God’s Son’.
I was surprised that: 1. It effectively ruled out John’s Gospel as a source; 2. It made no reference to the pre-existence of Christ (even though one of the author’s own protégés has shown definitively that this theme is writ large in the Synoptic Gospels); 3. It appeared to leave open the possibility that Jesus became divine at his baptism; 4. There was nothing that I could find at all on the resurrection (the author does have another book in the series on the resurrection but it still feels like an odd omission). And there was a bit of a posture of ‘so prove you’re historical, sucker!’ to the synoptic writers. So I’d recommend it to sharpen your critical faculties, but not to lend to a seeker or a wobbly new Christian.
WHY DID JESUS HAVE TO DIE?
By Jane Williams
ISBN 978 0 281 074 402
The author gives a nicely compressed explanation of the way the Passover and temple sacrifice images of the OT are used by NT writers to explain the death of Christ ‘for our sins’.
She sees a variety of overlapping ‘models of the atonement in the NT, using the language of representation and substitution. There is much that I found stimulating. However there are oddities – like the idea of Jesus being condemned by just about everyone apart from God. And when I read that ‘The Hebrew Scriptures nowhere say that God has to be propitiated, this is a means of reconciling us to God not God to us’, I felt a big distance from my understanding of the cross. I was also a bit puzzled by ‘Jesus screams out against God on our behalf.’ Once again – good for some mental flossing, but probably not for seekers or the confused.
WHY BE GOOD?
By Robin Gill
ISBN 978 0 281 076 567
A stimulating question! Four answers are explored (and three others are mentioned, including rewards in heaven which the author sees as morally dubious, unlike Jesus and Paul).
The first three are ‘non-religious reasons’: 1. Because some things are evil; which appears self evident, but is hard to prove; 2. Because if I scratch your back, you’ll scratch mine; i.e. enlightened self-interest. But the author is not very happy with this. 3. Because it is our duty; this Kantian approach may be hard to justify rationally, but most of us have it.
The author is arguing himself towards saying that you need God for morality, but he reverses away from that because he wants all to have a sense of morality. His final answer to the question is 4. Because God is good. This chapter starts by asserting the reality of God and goodness and proceeds to explore the different contributions of morality of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
This little work made me think but didn’t make me think of anyone I would want to lend or give it too. It seemed to make everything very very complicated and was too far adrift from the normativity of Scripture.
