Thursday, December 21, 2006

Klyne Snodgrass on the "gospel of Jesus"

In a chapter of the book The Written Gospel edited by Markus Bockmuehl and Don Hagner, Klyne Snodgrass has an interesting article on "The gospel of Jesus".

Snodgrass asks a few questions about Jesus and his "gospel":

What was the explicit content of Jesus' gospel?
To what degree is the gospel of Jesus new?
To what degree is the gospel of Jesus eschatological?
What does Jesus' gospel have to do with Israel or other groups?
To what degree is the gospel of Jesus political?
To what degree is the gospel of Jesus focused on ethics?
To what degree is the gospel of Jesus focused on himself?
To what degree is the gospel of Jesus in line with the gospel of Paul and the early church?
All very good questions indeed! Sadly, Snodgrass never gets around to answering them for us. Instead, he analyses how Jesus' gospel interfaces with four key foci: celebration, compassion, Israel and kingdom. This is a good article for anyone engaged in historical Jesus studies to read.

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