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Questions on Chapters 1 & 2 of Birch & Rasmussen
16 – "What kind of exegesis is appropriate to this task? Are all materials equally important?" These are questions we’ll want to keep in mind as we go through the Jesus Seminar’s results.
17 ff. – fundamental to Birch & Rasmussen’s view of Christian and Biblical ethics is that it is communal in both context and content. Radical individualism in modern ethics is a departure from that context and content. Does the method of the Jesus Seminar, isolating sayings and deeds as historical, reflect American individualism? Reinforce it? Or is the method even related to the issue? Put differently, as we go through the Jesus Seminar’s findings, will we be able to identify a context and content that is communal? Can we use Birch & Rasmussen’s perspective as a way of reading the individual sayings and deeds as pointing to a community? Or is it possible that Birch and Rasmussen’s fundamental perspective could be wrong?
19 – Ethics in Judaism and Christianity was first and foremost a "way of life" rather than a set of rules. This way of life reflects what it means to be a certain kind of people. What in the Jesus Seminar’s findings suggests a way of life or what kind of people Jesus thought we should be? How does this compare to Birch and Rasmussen’s view that the way of life is rooted in faithfulness to God as God’s people?
21 ff. – the notion of ethics as a way of life is linked to the "Jesus story" for B&R. The results of the Jesus Seminar will not be a narrative or story. Will a story be implied? Is a story necessary to discern a way of life? Is there a difference between the story that Jesus’ sayings and deeds presupposed and the story that the first Christians, i.e., the gospels, presupposed?
23 ff. – B&R note that Christianity was seen by early critics as a "philosophy"—what is meant by that term here? Is there any relevance to that observation and the Jesus Seminar’s comparison of Jesus to a cynic sage?
32 – Scripture was important to both ancient Jewish and Christian communities as "exemplary guidance" or "strong signals than legislation" – is this true? And is this the same as saying "Scriptures were not so much a fixed moral deposit for these communities as they were precious community records of what it meant in varied times and places under varied conditions to try to be Israel or to try to be a Christian people of God"?
Some general questions: What criteria for evaluating whether a saying or deed is ethical can we develop in light of B&R? Which of Jesus’ teachings and deeds tells us something about how he conceived of community and character? What do Jesus’ stories (parables) and stories of Jesus (deeds) suggest about character and community? How do Jesus’ "commands" relate to the above?
Questions on Chapter 3 of Birch & Rasmussen
How might the chart on p. 39 help us to "map" the sayings and deeds of Jesus? Do we see in Jesus’ sayings and deeds a tendency toward character formation or toward decision making and action, toward virtue or toward obligation and values? What virtues seem important in Jesus’ sayings and deeds? What values seem important? What social good? Can we infer anything about Jesus’ moral vision?
Can the results of the Jesus Seminar "shape the personal moral identity" of Christians (45)?
Be careful with the comments on p. 46 – are they imposing a Pauline understanding of sin and grace upon Jesus? We may want to ask whether what we discover about Jesus’ ethics from our study has a relationship to the Pauline perspective of sin and grace, and law and justification.
What understanding of God underlies Jesus’ sayings and deeds, and thus his ethics? How does that understanding differ from the Christian understanding which highlights Christ himself as central to the understanding of God? |