What did Jesus Mean and What was his purpose? (Garry Wills)

What Jesus Meant: Wills remains one of our country's most important public and outspokenly Christian intellectuals. Today he is Professor of History Emeritus at Northwestern University. In this shorter, more popular book which he describes as "devotional," Wills reaffirms his robust Christian faith. In a note about his own translations of the Greek New Testament for this book, Wills advises that he is trying to recapture the "rough-hewn majesty" and "brutal linguistic earthiness" of the koine Greek in which the Gospel story was originally written, in contrast to the over-familiar and "churchly" idiom of so many translations. This is important because throughout the book he quotes large portions of Scripture, and his sometimes awkward renditions help us hear afresh the radicality of the message. In fact, Wills is also trying to recapture the radically subversive life, teaching, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth: "He intended to reveal the Father to us, and to show that he is the only-begotten Son of that Father. What he signified is always more challenging than we expect, more outrageous, more egregious." A homeless "man of the margins," Jesus was anything but respectable, says Wills, and if he was not the God-Man that he claimed to be then he was clearly a blasphemer or a lunatic. He excoriates Thomas Jefferson's scissored-down Jesus who is little more than a "mild humanitarian moralizer," and the more recent Jesus Seminar scholars ("the new fundamentalism") who end up with a bland cardboard cutout. I think Wills is right—the search for the "original" Jesus has strict limits; even if scholars found the "true and original" Jesus behind the Bible texts, he would be more and not less incomprehensible. In eight brief chapters Wills surveys the life of Jesus. He starts with Jesus as a child and concludes with the resurrection accounts. For Wills Jesus is a sign of contradiction and a threat to political power who in his salvific mission as the Son of God "took up the burden of all mankind" (sic). He inaugurated the "reign of God." In Wills's reading Jesus is a radical egalitarian who saved his harshest criticisms for those who wanted to exercise spiritual authority over others. He regularly broke religious rituals, mocked external purity, and violated social taboos to demonstrate that God in his lavish and indiscriminate love never excludes people because they are unclean, unworthy, or unrespectable: "No outcasts were cast out far enough in Jesus's world to make him shun them." That includes Judas. In short, concludes Wills, "tremendous ingenuity has been expended to compromise these uncompromising words. Jesus is too much for us." In this slender volume he intends to deny that option to anyone who would trim, trivialize or domesticate the Son of God.
This is a book that will challenge the assumptions of almost everyone who brings religion into politics - "Christian socialists" as well as biblical theocrats.
http://www.enotalone.com/article/6648.html

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[scorpian8king]

jesus was one of many messangers who bring love and justice to men. leads them away from satan.

[buddy85442]

GREAT ,discussion Gary Wills makes a compelling arguments why Christ would not be a christian! The fundamental "God is love" foundation to any follower of Christ ,precludes most so called christian people and groups . The popular phrase "What would Jesus do?"Has never been a more relevant question than today.

[buddy85442]

@MRGV7373 Very good point ,but i think his intent is, the term christian was not started by Christ or the disciples but rather as a descriptive term used in the [negative] to specify a certain cult or sect, by the Jew's?as their attitude shows in Acts:28:22-23 .much like the{ Heavens gate} cult is referred to as [ Hale Bopp cult} just my opinion ....respectfully

[MRGV7373]

Paul was very much alive when the term "Christian" was coined. Act 11:26. This man is good but is not so accurate in some ways.

[MRGV7373]

Wow, this guy really get it. One of the great explanations o the gospels.

[Paur]

15:27

Yeeeaaaa, that was bullshit, Garry.

Just because religion can shape someone's morality, doesn't mean it thus should or would play a defining role in those political decisions. Not to mention other things can play a role in our morality. Trying to equate religion to morality there was crap.

[longfootbuddy]

jesus didnt say to pay taxes.. he was saying that the money belonged to ceasar, so give back money to ceasar, and give to god what is gods.. jesus knew the evils of money, and he had no use for it.. many people use this to justify paying tax, but thats not what he was meaning.. when he answered this question, he knew that the questioner was trying to trap him, but jesus was not endorsing the act of taxation.. he was saying to let ceasar have his money, because it is ceasars

[Mystagogia87]

What bothers me about Wills is that he'll get into issues about whether Paul really wrote certain letters, or whether they're saying something legitimate to us, etc. There's room for intelligent Catholic debate, but when you try to open that old can of worms, and try to revive an old argument that was settled over a millennium ago (the canon), that's not helpful; it's regression. That debate is over.

[LovingScrubbies]

There is a lot to agree with in what Wills is saying except in his total separation of the the record of Jesus from the teaching authority of "the church". It was church authority and tradition which produced the record of Jesus. There was a christian church long before there was a christian bible. This is so as a matter of history whether you are a christian or not. He backpedals on this further into the discussion.

[66thPsalm]

Very interesting~ Thanks