first century AD
The serious challenge for 2025
I might have mentioned before that each year, alongside all my other reading, I try to tackle one big issue in an effort to better understand the foundations of Christianity, and to challenge the beliefs and notions I’ve inherited or picked up in my long life. Topics to date include things like inspiration; the place of doubt versus certainty; questions about homosexuality; the role of women in the church. It’s been a sobering and humbling experience, and driven a coach and horses through some cherished ideas along the way. But I like to think I’m now more honest and humble about what I believe and how I live/ought to live.
So, this year my thinking has led me to explore who the real Jesus was, and why it matters. Many things suggest to me that the church has developed its own pictures and stories, and each culture and generation and new wave of scholars has overlaid them with yet more layers of interpretation. But who was the person known as Jesus of Nazareth in the Middle East in the first century AD, and what was he like, and is he indeed someone I want to follow, and if so, what should that look like? And as before, I’m very very aware that what I discover might require me to change my personal world-view and religious stance. And might indeed upset some people who have certain expectations of me.
Three weeks in and I’m feeling somewhat overwhelmed by the sheer volume of literature on the subject, ranging from the way-out bizarre, through the well-worth-delving-into, to the totally-out-of-my-depth-erudite! So, in an effort to save my sanity I’ve drawn up a plan for all the different aspects of Jesus’ life I want to examine, and marshalled the stack of books I want to read on the topic into some kind of order (sample shown above).
Back to it!