Jesus The Statesman: Without Default Settings - Softcover

Buchanan, George Wesley

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1425788351 ISBN 13: 9781425788353

Publisher: Xlibris, 2008

Synopsis

In contrast to all of the fanciful fabrications that have appeared in print recently, it is refreshing to see Buchanan's compelling portrait of Jesus as a master diplomat, organizer, chief executive, and statesman. Others have been led astray by some of the following invalid nineteenth century assumptions, presuming:

1) that the later church composed the gospel reports unreliably,
2) that all of the political terms in the gospels must be understood non-politically,
3) that any expression of "the end" always means the end of the world, regardless of its context,
4) that Jesus and his followers were illiterate, so the gospels were not written down until much later than the time when Jesus lived,
5) that Jesus did not speak to his own age but to ours.
6) That it does not matter what Jesus said and meant in his own day. What is important is how reading the gospels makes readers think and feel today.

With all of these potential eliminations of selected historical facts about Jesus, twentieth and twenty-first century authors have moved freely to invent a Jesus to fit their own time and location, treating the gospels as if they were inkblot tests to be used to reflect the readers' own feelings and opinions. Authors have disagreed about the details, because they had different needs. For some Jesus was a peasant, a Cynic (John Dominic Crossan), or a magician (Morton Smith). For others he was probably illiterate (James Dunn). Some thought the gospel reports were inaccurately preserved from only an oral tradition (James Dunn). There has been a strong tendency to use some or all of these hypotheses as if they were computer default settings, or NO TRESPASSING territorial signs, without the observance of which authors were not authorized to write. Such techniques and procedures as these at least partially account for

About this title

About the Author:

THE AUTHOR Prof. Buchanan is third in a family of ten children. He spent 14 happy years as a pastor before teaching 31 years in a Theological Seminary. He has worked extensively in the Near East, published many sermons, church school materials, poems, 17 books, and more than 60 articles in academic journals. Some of his research has taken place in libraries in Germany, Israel, and many universities in USA. He has been recognized in academic circles for being the first for the following: 1. use of insights from the Dead Sea Scrolls to solve biblical problems. 2. discover midrash (commentary on Scripture) in the First Testament. 3. publish intertextual commentaries both in the First Testament and in the New Testament. 4. discover the northern boundaries of the Promised Land. 5. is one of two scholars who independently discovered the true location of the temple at Zion. 6. discover the method for distinguishing the teachings of Jesus from the additions of the later church. Other scholars have followed Schweitzer in declaring that this could not be done. He has not turned his attention to the historical Jesus, demonstrating the validity of the gospels and showing much historical data that has been overlooked by other scholars. As a pastor he has answered here the many questions parishioners have asked him about Jesus. As a historian he has searched diligently for new sources to learn about Jesus. This book is written for the general public and can be understood by people who read newspapers.

About this edition

• Publisher: Xlibris
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1425788351
• ISBN 13: 9781425788353
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 264