"Jesus is in the news as much now as ever before. An archaeologist digs up a new stone; an archivist redates a manuscript; a seminar comes up with a new analysis; and suddenly the newspapers get interested. Does this new view ‘mean’ that Jesus never did or said what the Gospels say he did or said? Or perhaps that, after all, he really did? The passion these questions arouse shows that a lot of people are still fascinated by Jesus - even if they sometimes hope to find a rather different Jesus from the one in the biblical Gospels."
(Original Jesus, 7)
In The Original Jesus, I discovered that the Jesus described in the Gospels... the real Jesus... doesn't quite fit with much of the popular theology out there. Much of what we are taught about Jesus is more or less non-tangible. That is, theologically sound but hard to relate to historically or experientially. We start out with the knowledge (which I as a Christian affirm) that Jesus is God / the second person of the Trinity. And then we read the Gospels in such a way that everything -- the miracles, the teachings, the death, the resurrection- everything is simply about proving the deity of Jesus. And so we miss out on meeting him as a person. My desire is that this process of study and conversation will give us a fresh vision of Jesus (which has everything to do with what it means to follow him today). So.... let the conversation begin!
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