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Chapter 15
What would be required in Christology Today?

Who really is Jesus Christ?

5 ways of modern statement would differ from the traditional ones.

1. There is the historical question
a. Historical knowledge about Jesus rooted in the gospels
b. E.P. Sanders claimed that there are few basic historical facts about Jesus that can be
regarded as certain an found in the confirmation in the earliest source of Jesus, the
letters of St. Paul.
2. Where does Christology begin?
a. Christology form below from the humanity of Jesus Christ and those which begin from
above that is to say from his origin in God.
b. The classical Christology is from above. It was depicted in the Nicene Creed we
affirm that Jesus is the only Son of God. eternally begotten of the Father, God from
God, Loght from light true God from true God, begotten not made of one being with
the Father Kerygma is not a complete Christology a Christology for the present
day must begin from the humanity of Christ is not to decide in advance that it cannot
go further.
3. Third point is to be borne in mind in the construction of a contemporary Christology is the problem of
Metaphysics.
a. Ousia, being homoosoius of the same being, physis nature hypostasis subsistence
b. The spreading of the HELENISTIC influence had a great impact derived in the greek
language.
4. Concerns with the relation of Jesus Christ to the human race as a whole - the question of his benefits seen from
different angle.
a. Jesus Christ has a vital significance in the human race.
b. A life-giving spirit that had been said by Paul
5. The supposedly unique place of JESUS Christ in the History of Gods dealings with his creatures.
a. There are many figures in the different religion in the world which manifest the
expression of faith in the Christ.
b. Judaism and the paganism there was no problem in claiming that in Jesus Christ
alone is there a true self communication of God.

BUT what are the consequences of this for the understanding among Christians of Jesus Christ? Can
anyone still speak of him as The Son of GOD? In him alone there is salvation?

We must look again to the questions in which will make the Christology understood.








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Chapter 16
The Historical Question

DID JESUS EVER EXIST?

There were handfuls of writers sought to show that the figure of Jesus is a product of the
mythologizing imagination.

Arthur Drews Figure of Jesus developed out of the cult of a sun god
Marxist Albert Kaltoff and Karl Kautsky Jesus was a mythical figure embodying the
longings of the oppressed underclass of the Roman Empire.

This would be an evidence that the church exist before our eyes with a history going back to
the first century.

John Knox - The principal arguments of the historians have for the existence of Jesus is
the Church prior knowledge of it. That is a memory of Jesus which can be traced back
continually through the centuries to the time when the church first emerged into
consciousness.

The church began to produce writings which eventually collected in the time of the New
Testament.
The non Christian Writers from the late 1
st
century or early second century Josephus,
Tacitus, Pliny, Seutonius, the Jewish Talmud they do afford evidence in the existence of
Jesus.
Jesus did live in the time of Augustus and Tiberius.

In Paul - there are characteristics in fact the summary which they had given:

1. Exorcisms
2. The breach of the Sabbath Commandment
3. The abandonment of ritual purification
4. Polemic against Jewish legalism
5. The fellowship of the outcast
6. Sympathy for the women and children; it can also be seen
7. Jesus was not an ascetic like John the Baptist but gladly ate and drank a glass of wine,
8. He called disciples and gathered about himself a small company of followers men and
women

Kierkegaard accept the gospel record as reliable and even believed that Jesus himself had
claimed to be God.
JESUS Christ God appeared in a strict incognitio an incognito impenetrable to the
most intimate observation.

Baille would not deny that if God communicates himself through the infinite entities this
implies the veiling of his infinite being.

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Barth pointed out that Jesus may be seen as simply the rabbi of Nazareth. In the word of
Matthews Gospel that flesh and blood will not reveal anything more than the flesh and
blood - the realm of the finite.


The questions historical assertions

The messianic consciousness of Jesus.
a. Jesus is believed that himself he was called God to announce the kingdom
b. He spoke of God as a Father with whom he had an intimate relation
c. According to Thomas Aquinas Jesus Christ had from the first instant of his
conception a full knowledge of God including his relation to God.
d. He is the central figure in what is going on the mediator between God and the
human race and we can hardly suppose that he is the unconscious of the meaning of
the events in which he is involved
e. The crucifixion is the indubitable as the fact that he already exist.
f. We are not sure why Jesus was drawn to Jerusalem at the end of his career- the main
reason for this uncertainty is that probably Jesus himself was not entirely clear about
the meaning of the step he was taking.
g. True legend embodies some memory that had survived in the tradition.

We began this chapter by noting that critical scholarship has eroded much of the historical material
of the New Testament, - some minimum factual is needed in Christian theology beyond the bare
assertion that Jesus lived and was eventually crucified. We found out the historical criticism of the
Gospel far being negative there are these docetist tendencies that entered in the picture of Jesus, it
has force us to recognize that the one who confronts us in the gospels I no mythological demigod
but a genuine human being in the fullest sense.