Jesus: Liar, Madman, or God? - Essay Sample

Introduction

The Bultmann's Project is a development from the three trilemmas about the view of Jesus that the other scholar tried to demystify. In the fourth quadrilemma, they dismiss the third trilemma saying that Jesus from history never claimed his divinity. A direct dislink is thus created between the historical Jesus and the one associated with the Christ of Faith. In saying so, the three previously explained trilemmas change into a quadrilemma where they evaluate Jesus into either a liar, a madman, that his claim on divinity is true or that he was never related to the claims of divinity made and that the claims made were transfigurations development, legendarily.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Many intellects started denying the divinity of Christ's claim and came up with different explanations on why the claims were not true. God is viewed as the creator but after creation, he had no power over the creation anymore and thus he cannot influence whatever goes on the world. In that understanding, the view of Christ's divinity becomes hard to explain and to believe. The thinkers and philosophers of the 18th century decided not to completely ignore Christianity but accept it as a religion of reason. The teachings of the New Testament were considered myths that do not give a clear view of Christianity. Religion had taken a new toll that could not be explained. It is through that perspective that Bultmann came up with his project of dy-mythologization of the theories put forward by the German Protestants. Christ was viewed historically and not the claims suggested about him being divine and related to faith.

Bultmann removed everything supernatural about the history of Christ and saw the New Testament as a "Mythical world picture." He claimed that modern Christianity is faced with the question of proving the validity of the supernatural claims and thus it has to question the mythological nature of the New Testament. He claimed that people cannot be so vested into Christianity and when they fall sick they sick medical attention instead of going to Christianity about it. That would render the Christian faith unintelligible and confused. Bultmann claims that the only thing we know about the historic Jesus is that he is a Palestinian Jew who was crucified at the cross pointing towards his failure to the reduction of the New Testament myths. He, however, sees the failure as an advantage as it enables people to perceive Christianity and religion how they want it to be and not according to some preset myths presented in the New Testament.

The failure of the Bultmann project is attributed to the three principles of proclamation over the event, the principle of discontinuity and the evolution concept. The proclamation of over event explains that the New Testament only talks of the early church which is not true. The principle of discontinuity on the other hand also does not explain how we can get back to Jesus from the Old Testament. The last principle is the evolution principle which explains how things transform from the simple to the complex without defining what the simple covers.

Development of Magisterium

The Catholic doctrines on the teaching about inspiration believe and state that the text of the sacred scripture was written through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The teachings about inspiration and directly tied to the reality of revelation. In knowing that, it is also imperative that one knows the order of knowledge in the Catholic doctrines which are the order of natural reason and the order of supernatural revelation. The scriptures are greatly anchored on the second order. Nevertheless, it is important to note that revelation is not limited to some parts of the Sacred Scriptures but spreads throughout the New Testament and the Old Testament and that all the parts are divinely inspired. The Catholic doctrine on the teachings of inspiration is the ultimate confirmation that the Sacred Scriptures were written from the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and God Himself as at the end they declare that God is the author of the scriptures. The books are said to be an inspiration of the Holy Spirit because they have God as their author.

The doctrine of inerrancy flows directly from the one of inspiration and they cannot be studied separately in the quest to understand either. Vatican II explains its teaching of the subject on the plenary inspiration context. The teachings claim that all the writers of the sacred scriptures write and assert must be regarded as the truth and that they are works of the Holy Spirit's assertions. The teachings proceed to say that the truth in the teachings is brought to light firmly, sincerely and error-free. From the teachings above the reference about the Bible's nature to be free from error is birthed. The last aspect in the scripture talks about the inerrancy of the scriptures by stating the reason behind the inerrancy which is for the salvation of the human folk.

The two faithful approaches the doctrines of inspiration and inerrancy are the teaching office of the church. Pope Leo III teaches in his encyclical that people should not imagine the lack of truth and inspiration in the scriptures. He warns that it is unacceptable and wrong in all views. There is an aspect of divine authorship where God influenced the writers of the scripture and thus there can be no room for error in the publications of the same. Also, the other approach is that there is no reason whatsoever to include history that did not happen in the bible though that is not a guarantee.