[September 2004 journal entry]
Across the years since 1992, I have tried to handle carefully and thoroughly the question re what image (if any) of ‘Jesus’ is possible/legitimate outside the ‘religious’ sphere. (My prior years of rigorous consideration of the ‘historical Jesus’ question were useful but not sufficient as I engaged this question even more earnestly outside the ‘religious’ sphere. The same limitation was true of the attempts I had made prior to 1992 to critically test ‘God’ language.) By the end of my doctoral studies (1981), I was determined to be first a historian, then a theologian. Among the many implications, this methodological commitment meant that my theological efforts would be based on the results of an unrestrained and critical assessment of the resources – principally the ‘gospels’ of Christian scripture – for constructing an image of ‘Jesus’. During my graduate study years, my center of gravity re Jewish scripture and Christian scripture shifted to the story/play Job and to the Ecclesiastes essay because (1) neither depended on resolution of historiographical questions similar to the ‘quest for the historical Jesus’ and (2) both focused on the core life-questions re suffering and integrity I was facing. This shift gave me (1) a position both in life and within Jewish scripture and Christian scripture from which to engage the historiographical questions prerequisite to imaging ‘Jesus’ and (2) an existential grid by which to sift through the sources re ‘Jesus’. These methodological decisions have remained matters of intense inquiry for me to the present. Not surprisingly, ‘Christology’ steadily diminished for me as ‘Jesus’ the human being became increasingly real to me. And as ‘Jesus’ the human being came into focus for me, his being a man of his time/setting (as Schweitzer argued, convincingly in my judgment, a century ago against the 19th-century ‘lives of Jesus’) became increasingly evident – e.g., his pre-modern/pre-scientific view of the world, his limited education, his lack of family responsibilities, his anticipation of a near end to history, his use of ‘God’ language minus reservations about the morphic (e.g., anthropo-, socio-, cosmo-) limitations of such language, . . . . I lost sight of ‘Jesus’ as a ‘lord’ or a ‘king’ with a final or authoritative word/path to follow. I gained sight of ‘Jesus’ as a possible example for the missing character in the story/play Job and as a potential conversation partner for the Ecclesiastes author. This ‘Jesus’ would have to set aside any ‘religious’ T/O paradigm ideas that would undermine his ability to be such. The ‘scrapheap’ Job and the Ecclesiastes author would have insights to offer him. I find the fact that ‘Jesus’ was seen/treated as dangerous and heretical by the guardians of the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm of his day a compelling reason to think (1) he would be seen/treated similarly by the guardians of the ‘religious’ T/O paradigm today and (2) he might be a candidate for the missing character in the story/play Job and a conversation partner for the Ecclesiastes author. This surviving image of ‘Jesus’ remains in my vision as I journey further and further away from the familiar (to me) shoreline of the ‘religious’ sphere and into the open seas of being ‘with the world face to face’.