Person of Jesus

Question 1

What did Zeffirelli say about Jesus and divinity?

Answer 1

“Christians have no problem accepting Christ as holy, as God. But they always have problems accepting him also as a human being at the same time”

Question 2

What does Jesus call God? What does that suggest?

Answer 2

“Abba” (Greek for father)
Suggests that Jesus really was the son of God

Question 3

What did the Council of Chalcedon say about Jesus’ two natures?

Answer 3

• Christ has two natures which came together in one person - he’s “truly God, truly man”
• Believe these two natures were a ‘perfect conjunction’

Question 4

What questions can be asked about Jesus’ two natures?

Answer 4

• Did Jesus have a sinful nature of the kind St Paul/Augustine writes about? How could you be holy AND corrupted?
• If he was God, did he suffer on the cross? How did they kill something divine? Was his resurrection just a dramatic ploy?
• Did he actually have emotions or was he just pretending to have them?

Question 5

What did Gerald O’Collins say about Jesus’ two natures?

Answer 5

• Jesus left no writings! His inner experiences are hard to fathom
• Collins believed he knew about his mission of salvation and his unique relationship with the Father, intuitively aware of his divine nature

Question 6

What did Karl Rahner say about Jesus’ two natures?

Answer 6

• A genuinely human conscious must have an unknown future
• God’s awareness could hardly mean he’s human
• Instead, Jesus must be like an onion with many layers
• Human on the surface, divinity buried deep underneath

Question 7

What did John Hick say about Jesus’ two natures?

Answer 7

• If Jesus was only aware of God’s will and willingness to act, he wasn’t very different to many like Moses or Muhammed
• After all, Moses could part the seas and there have been many other holy people
• The label ‘Son of God’ was a popular title in Judaism to describe a special person chosen by God. Jesus may not have been truly, divinely unique
• Concludes that Christianity would become one of many religions that just perceives God in a different way. It’s uniqueness is in God’s incarnation through Christ

Question 8

What did CS Lewis say about Jesus being a teacher of wisdom?

Answer 8

• Rejects anyone who accepted Jesus as a teacher but not the son of God
• “He would be a lunatic”
• You can’t just pick and choose bits of Jesus you wish to follow

Question 9

What did Dawkins say about Jesus being a teacher of wisdom?

Answer 9

Said that ‘Jesus was a great moral teacher’

Question 10

What is the Bleeding Woman story? In which Gospel is it in?

Answer 10

• Mark 5
• Jesus heals a bleeding woman through touch - something that was scandalous at that time
• Shows he was breaking down social norms - women would’ve been stoned to death if Jesus had shouted that she was touching him

Question 11

What does Hume say about miracles?

Answer 11

• We have no present day, direct experiences of miracles. It’s impossible to say that Jesus walked on water currently
• Despite this, are we just cynical/skeptical now which means we don’t see miracles right now?

Question 12

What do miracles show about Jesus’ nature?

Answer 12

They’re things only God can do, suggesting that Jesus is mainly divine in nature

Question 13

What may question the validity of miracles in showing Jesus is divine?

Answer 13

• Miracles may be metaphorical/spiritual, not literal
• Did the Gospel writers really write accurately about Jesus? Did they not alter/embellish details to make Jesus seem more like an idol?

Question 14

What educated term was Jesus sometimes seen as?

Answer 14

• A rabbi (a term of respect for educated teachers)

Question 15

In what ways was Jesus a good moral teacher? (generally)

Answer 15

• Clearly could read and spent a lot of time preaching in synagogues
• Used controversial/surprising stories to break preconceived notions
• Practiced what he preached. His teachings remain striking today

Question 16

What Gospel does the Sermon on the Mount feature in?

Answer 16

Matthew’s Gospel - Chapter 5-7

Question 17

What did the Sermon on the Mount start with?

Answer 17

The Beatitudes

Question 18

What do the Beatitudes say?

Answer 18

Blessed are the:
- Poor in spirit
- Meek
- Merciful
- Those who mourn
- Pure in heart
- Peacemakers
- Those who hunger and thirst
- Those who are persecuted for righteousness

Question 19

What ethical type of philosophy does the sermon on the mount on the mount teach?

Answer 19

Deontological - only puts importance in intentions

Question 20

What are Jesus’ 5 main moral teachings?

Answer 20

• Agape (love thy neighbour)
• Justice, mercy, forgiveness (woman and throwing the first stone)
• Service and humility (teaching of Jesus washing feet and you having to wash your feet in return)
• Honesty and integrity (practice what you preach)
• Spirituality, not materialism (easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle)

Question 21

How was Jesus a political liberator in the eyes of the Pharisees?

Answer 21

• Argued with Pharisees over religious laws, challenged established institutions, authorities and rules
• Arrested by the supreme court of justice in Jerusalem (by the Sanhedrin) and handed over to Pontius Pilate for execution for CIVIC crimes, not religious
• The temple story
• The early church certainly had enough motive to simply hide Jesus’ revolutionary tendencies to avoid persecution

Question 22

What did Jesus want out of political/social revolution?

Answer 22

Wanted the people of Israel to be liberated from Roman Occupation (in a time of poverty, assassination, murders, military rebellion). Wanted societal change

Question 23

How did Jesus’ friends suggest he was a political revolutionary?

Answer 23

• Friends with Zealots - a group that was leading the open conflict
• Eg. Simon the Zealot or Judas Iscariot (with iscarri meaning ‘dagger man’, another name for Zealot)

Question 24

What is an example of Jesus doing an obviously politically driven thing?

Answer 24

• On Palm Sunday, Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey as passover was at its height (meaning there’d be an abundance of military personnel) while the crowd laid cloaks and palm branches to symbolise the Maccabees (who’d liberated Israel from Roman control 2 centuries before)
• Clearly an event orchestrated to show the long awaited Messiah coming to set Israel free

Question 25

What evidence was there to show that Jesus was a pacifist?

Answer 25

• “Blessed are the peacemakers”
• “Those who take up the sword will die by the sword” - when his disciples drew weapons to prevent his arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane, he told them to put them down

Question 26

What evidence is there to show that Jesus wasn’t a pacifist?

Answer 26

• Spent time with the sick/oppressed
• Crucified next to bandits
• Anger at the money changes going on in the temple
• Actively challenging Pharisees - confrontation of authority

Question 27

What did Hitchens say about Jesus being a great moral teacher?

Answer 27

Argued against it. If only Jesus/God can judge people, how would society work?

Question 28

What are some examples of Jesus’ miracles?

Answer 28

• Feeding the 5000
• Healing a leper
• Turning water into wine
• Stilling a storm
• The great haul of fishes

Question 29

How did NT Wright interpret miracles?

Answer 29

Miracles should be understood in terms of what the writer’s intentions were through writing about them. They’re used as exemplars in the Bible and (even if they’re not literal) show Jesus’ authority

Question 30

What did Schillebeckx believe about miracles?

Answer 30

Miracles should be interpreted through spiritual meaning, not literal meaning

Question 31

What does Reza Aslan say about Jesus being a political Liberator?

Answer 31

Argues that the New Testament omits a lot of confrontational resistance that involved Jesus

Question 32

What is Liberation Theology?

Answer 32

Where a young group of Brazilian, Catholic theologians reinterpreted the message of Christianity as being focused on poverty. Said Jesus’ true message was economic justice

Question 33

What might be an issue with Rahner’s onion theory?

Answer 33

If divinity was buried deep within him, surely he wouldn’t have been able to perform miracles?

Question 34

What did SGF Brandon say about historical Jesus?

Answer 34

• Did a study of historical Jesus
• Found him to be a politically driven freedom fighter
• Reps of him were later toned down and rewritten to show him as pacifist

Question 35

What did EP Sanders say about Jesus being unique/Jesus’ divinity?

Answer 35

• Investigated historical Jesus
• Said there’s no way for Christian claims about Jesus as the son of God to be verified - history and faith remain very separate things
• Jesus’ miracles, teachings and hope for outcasts make him different to other teachers but no entirely unique

Question 36

What did Camilo Torres Restrepo say about Jesus being a political liberator?

Answer 36

• Roman Catholic Priest who joined communist people’s army in a guerrilla war
• Said that if Jesus were around today he’d also be a guerrilla fighter
• (Was Jesus really a teacher of wisdom then?)

Question 37

What did John Macquarrie say about Jesus’ uniqueness?

Answer 37

• Question of uniqueness should be abandoned
• It is ambiguous + easy to argue that every single person is unique in some way
• No moment in Jesus’ life makes him son of God