BORG & WRIGHT
In their book �the Meaning of Jesus� Marcus Borg and Dennis Wright present two views of the Jesus of history. The liberal Marcus Borg believes that we need to make a differentiation between the pre-Easter and post-Easter Jesus. Borg believes that the post-Easter Jesus is whom Jesus became after his resurrection. The post-Easter Jesus is the living Christ of the Christian faith, Bible, tradition, theology, and authentic Christian experience. This is the canonical Jesus of the present. It is whom Borg believes that Jesus become to the Christian community after his death. The pre-Easter Jesus is whom he believes that Jesus was during his historical lifetime.
Borg�s distinction between the pre and post-Easter Jesus is largely driven by his concern that too much emphasis on Christ�s divinity might lead us to loose track of His humanity. He believes that the historical Jesus was a human Jesus and not one working miracles in the self-knowledge that he was God. Borg states that he �who knows himself to be the divinely begotten Son of God and who has divine knowledge and power is not truly human.� In looking at Jesus as only the divine miracle worker, Borg himself lost track of the historical Jesus as a human being. As a youth, Borg had seen the divine Christ of the past and the divine Christ of the future second coming but in this picture had lacked a Jesus of the present. Borg feels that if we fail to distinguish between the pre and post Easter Jesus, that we loose track of both.
Borg derives at his portrait of the pre-Easter Jesus through a look at the gospels as a product of developing tradition-process, a look at the ancient Judaism from which Christ arose, an interdisciplinary study of Jesus and Christian origins, and a cross-cultural study of religion. He gives value to religious experiences and states of consciousness and holds to the reality of a religious worldview that extends beyond the narrow limits of our modern secular viewpoint.
In his perception of the pre-Easter Jesus, Borg does not believe that the gospels give a historical account of the life of Jesus. He believes that many of the events are presented as a symbolic narrative While he does not consider it factual history, he does not conclude that only historical material is relevant. He holds that the gospels themselves are a developing tradition and a mixture of history remembered and history metaphorized. Rather than a literal �feeding of the multitudes,� he would see a metaphorized story relating to Moses in the wilderness and thus holding a symbolic value. He feels that they hold both the voice of Jesus as well as the voice of the community and in searching for the historical Jesus he wishes to sort out the voices.
To discern what is early or what goes back to Jesus, Borg holds to the �two source hypothesis� with Q and Mark as the earliest gospels and John as the last (Borg believes that Paul was the first New Testament author, but Paul primarily speaks of Jesus after his historical lifetime). He cast beeds with the lot of those at the Jesus seminar as he himself discerns what is early by much of this group�s same process. He relies on multiple attestation: if a tradition appears in an early source and then in another he considers it likely to be early. After establishing the core of multiple attestation, if texts with a single attestation are coherent with this core they could be considered early. Within this developing picture, Borg also looks at tendendencies within a developing tradition to determine what is early and what is late. Borg also relies on various sources to determine the historical context during the life of Christ.
WRIGHT---
Wright contrasts Borg's view and presents a conservative perspective of Christ in history. He does not ignore history, but rather hopes not to fall prey to the enlightenment split where �history is used as a weapon against faith and faith escapes from history.� He does not feel that there was a split between faith and history. He feels that �history can�t veto faith though it can pose hard questions to faith, and in order to retain its integrity faith must struggle to answer.� He does not ignore history but feels that it can be accommodated into faith.
Wright makes what I feel is a very good point in saying that �history is a matter of looking through one�s own spectacles and one�s spectacles are certainly distorting the picture.� Where does one look from? His history begins with Jesus, the Palestinian Jew and he looks at the Jesus of faith within historical context. He feels that the �historical evidence was as well if not better interpreted within a different framework.� He also feels that much of Borg�s process is built on assumptions that are somewhat circular and he doesn�t think that early Christians made a distinction between Jesus of history and the Jesus of faith.
SELF AWARENESS-AND PURPOSE-CROSS
Jesus�s own self-awareness is a big issue to Borg. He sees Christ�s self-awareness different from that of traditional Christian perceptions. He believes that Jesus was the Messiah, but does not believe that Jesus was aware of himself as such. He states �I am sufficiently doubtful that we can trace a messianic self-awareness back to Jesus so that I do not doubtful that we can trace a messianic self-awareness back to Jesus so that I do not use the term messiah (or any other exalted metaphors) in my historical reconstruction of Jesus.� He supports this through his belief that a messianic self claim was not present in Mark and that later gospels tended to add exalted language to earlier texts.
Borg feels that Christ�s self-awareness as the Messiah is an important question because his self-awareness relates to a large part of his teachings, concerns, and purpose. �Did Jesus want people to believe in him?� Borg claims that Jesus was not interested in having people believe in him but that he was doing something else that was in line with Borg�s perception of the pre-Easter Jesus.
In this pre-Easter picture of Christ, Borg believed Jesus was a Jewish mystic or �spirit person� and he derives this in large from the cross-cultural study of types of religious personality. In Borg�s eyes, Christ was a mystic who saw into another layer of reality. Such an experience with the sacred characterizes him with those known as spirit persons. Borg also saw Jesus as a healer and exorcist as Borg considers paranormal healings a reality. His healings provoked attention and his wisdom pointed to another �way� different from conventional wisdom as Borg also sees Christ as a social prophet and movement initiator. He sees Jesus as a prophet of the kingdom of God that he does not limit to an immanent end but to a social or political metaphor for a community. He taught a path of transformation and as a social prophet with a sense of vocation, he stood with critique of the oppressive and exploitive political structure of the times.
Borg does not believe that Jesus saw his death as salvic. He does not believe that it took him by surprise, but not that he saw it central to his purpose. He lines with scholars whom see the passion narratives as post Easter creations and has difficulty understanding how Jesus�s death was a shock to his followers. He sees passages from the Hebrew Bible's prophecy historicized rather than prophesy fulfilled. Borg finds it strange to think that Jesus thought his own death would accomplish the final battle against evil. Borg says, �I don�t want Jesus to have seen his own death as having the significance Tom gives to it. As a Christian I want Jesus to be an attractive figure.� He claims that he would need strong historical evidence to see otherwise.
WRIGHT
Wright contrasts Borg�s view and feels that Christ seeing himself as the Messiah is completely reasonable. Amongst other would be messiahs, Christ was at the head of a movement in which he felt the long awaited kingdom was dawning. Wright believes that Christ�s actions were �inaugurating the kingdom that was in some sense present and not only in the future. � �He felt called to take on the real enemy, of which Rome, as many of his contemporaries would agree was the symbol and pawn. � Wright feels that Jesus was fighting the behind the scenes �Satan� and his weapon was loving his enemies and taking up the cross. Wright does not believe that it is historically provable that Jesus believed he was the messiah, but to say �Jesus acted and spoke in ways consistent with the veiled claim to be the messiah, and inconsistent with having no intention of making such a claim" can be sustained historically.
To Wright Christ�s death is the one through whom Israel�s God would at last deal with exile in sin and bring about its longed for redemption. Wright believes it was Christ�s vocation to take upon himself, actually and symbolically, the fate which he had announced to the nation as a whole. �It was the early Christian deduction from the resurrection, that his death had been the �hinge upon which the door to God�s New World had sprung open.� Wright sees the dying of Christ as more in tune with where Israel was in God�s eschatological timetable than about how atonement functioned. In its modern day relevance, �the new traditional theme projects the victory inward, into the heart and conscience of the believer, and on the other hand forward into the state of affairs after death or end of the world.�
RESPONSE
In not wanting to look at Christ�s death, Borg does show a little resemblance to Peter�s initial response when Christ told him of his trip to Jerusalem. Peter said, �God forbid it, Lord! This must never happen to you. Christ responded �Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men� (Matt 16:23). Wright recognizes the problem in his statement and says, �if we only accept about Jesus those elements, which naturally attract us, we shall sail close to making Jesus a figure in our own image.�
I think that if Jesus was love, he knew of the significance of his mission to the cross. Jesus saw us as lambs in cages and wished to free us. He was Jewish and knew about Solomon and the imagery of opened flowers and palm trees within the temple and wished to open them. To open them he needed to provide their security and strength. To do this he needed both enter their death and be God. If he were human, he might have thought, �how can I save all of these people without being God?� In his perfect love, humility, and unity with God he directed praise from himself to the Father.
Why do the humanity and divinity of Christ need to stand at such opposite poles? It seems that Christ�s divinity could increase his humanity. If in his humanity he merely felt all of the same doubts and tribulations that we do, would he be in perfect love or would it be selfishishness? Does the historical Jesus of Borg move us to a human Jesus whom experienced our selfishness? I don�t know about that, but perhaps the historical Jesus was feeling our insecurities and doubts rather than his own though this perfect love. I do think that the strength and faith in his divinity would also increase the humanity of his followers for looking at his divinity ultimately relates to a strength and security within the concept of perfect love.
Right now, what concerns me most are the processes behind Borg�s construction of the historical Jesus. It does seem like a human construction based on human methods. Historical processes moving into faith. I don�t think history can reach Jesus for historical study is a natural process and just by that mere fact alone is going to lend to a distorted perception. For me faith can meet history, but history can�t reach faith.