Baker Academic

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Jesus of the Apocalypse - Le Donne


Observation: the portrayal of Jesus in the Book of Revelation is one of our earliest.


Question: why is there so little use of this portrayal in historical Jesus study?

10 comments:

  1. I think one reason for the reticence is that Revelation does not read the same way as a gospel. It's a record of a vision of what will (arguably) happen, not a record of remembrances of what has (arguably) happened. If you were to work with Revelation's image of Jesus, how would you apply it to historical Jesus studies?

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    1. I agree with dannyyencich, but I'm curious if you, Dr. LeDonne, are asking the question from a memory standpoint? What dannyyencich says is true, but the author's memory of Revelation does exist in the past even if it's a vision of the future. So my prime question is, because we are willing to analyze the historical Jesus based on memories of how he was then, is it fair to analyze the memory of an even that's technically in the future?

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    2. I suppose to read John's Revelation in that way would be to begin the study from the position that takes him as lying. That he didn't have a vision. He was just remembering stuff and writing it down.

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    3. I was replying to dkhundley, not you :)

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    4. Well I didn't particularly mean it that way. I'm not inferring that he's lying. He is recording the vision he had from his memory because the vision, while future in nature, is in the past as a past vision. Like saying he had the vision last week or last month. So, the vision (future) that he saw(past).

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  2. I think there remains a lot of confusion over how to approach the genre, even though much work has been done on the topic. I don't think I've come across any essays or articles where someone seeks to present methodology for how apocalyptic literature can tell us about historical persons.

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  3. You can't trust an Apocalypse. Have you seen the stuff Shepherd of Hermas says about Jesus?

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