These are found in the chapter titled, Conclusion to Part One: Why Bother?
Fundamentalists object to the quest for the exact opposite reason: the historical Jesus is naively equated with the Jesus presented in all Four Gospels. All tensions and contradictions in the four narratives are harmonized by hilarious mental acrobatics. (197)
Good Quote:
Against any attempt to 'domesticate' Jesus for a comfortable, respectable bourgeois Christianity, the quest for the historical Jesus, almost from its inception, has tended to emphasize the embarassing, noncomformist aspects of Jesus: e.g., his association with the religious and social 'lowlife' of Palestine, his prophetic critique of external religious observances that ignore or strangle the inner spirit of religion, his opposition to certain religious authorities, especially the Jerusalem priesthood. (199)
I-don't-get-it Quote:
Like good sociology, the historical Jesus subverts not just some ideologies, but all ideologies, including liberation theology. (199)
2 comments:
sounds like a pretty terrible book...
Haha, these quotes aren't representative of the book.
I am actually really impressed with Meier's methodological rigor, historical insight, and "honest" reading of the gospel materials.
Now, if only he wrote a book on how he balances the things that he "accepts by faith" and the presumed, skeptical-historian attitude that he (rightfully) adopts in this book.
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