Category Archives: Jesus

Jesus

Life of Jesus (1927) by Ernest Renan

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“The position which he [Jesus] attributed to himself was that of a superhuman being, and he wished to be regarded as sustaining a higher relationship to God than other men. But it must be remarked that these words, “superhuman” and “supernatural,” borrowed from our petty theology, had no meaning in the exalted religious consciousness of Jesus. To him nature and the development of humanity were not limited kingdoms apart from God–paltry realities subject to the laws of a hopeless empiricism. There was no supernatural for him, because there was no nature.”

“All the social revolutions of humanity will be grafted on this phrase [‘kingdom of God’]. But, tainted by a coarse materialism, and aspiring to the impossible — that is to say, to found universal happiness upon political and economical measures — the ‘socialist’ attempts of our time will remain unfruitful, until they take as their rule the true spirit of Jesus, I mean absolute idealism — the principle that, in order to possess the world, we must renounce it.”

“The ‘party of order’ (I use this term in its mean and narrow sense) has ever been the same. Deeming the highest duty of government to be the prevention of popular disturbances, it believes it performs an act of patriotism in preventing, by judicial murder, the tumultuous effusion of blood. Little thoughtful of the future, it does not dream that, in declaring war against all innovations, it incurs the risk of crushing ideas destined one day to triumph.”

Link to book: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Life_of_Jesus_(Renan)

The Life of Jesus” is a book based on the idea that the life of Jesus should be written like the life of any historic person, and that the Bible could and should be subject to the same critical scrutiny as other historical document. Renan attributed the idea of the book to his sister, Henriette, with whom he was traveling in Ottoman Syria and Palestine when, struck with a fever, she died suddenly. With only a New Testament and copy of Josephus as references, he began writing. The book was based largely on the Gospel of John, and was a scholarly work. It depicted Jesus as a man but not God, and rejected the miracles of the Gospel. Renan believed by humanizing Jesus he was restoring to him a greater dignity. “The Life of Jesus” promoted racial ideas and infused race into theology and the person of Jesus; the author depicted Jesus as a Galilean who was transformed from a Jew into a Christian, and that Christianity emerged purified of any Jewish influences.

(books.google.com)

Jesus

Jesus as a “democratic chief”

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Me:

What is a “democratic chief” as referred to by Ernest Renan in his book The Life of Jesus?

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In The Life of Jesus, Ernest Renan uses “democratic chief” to describe Jesus as a popular leader of the common masses. He means a leader who embodies the collective spirit of ordinary people, speaks for them naturally, and rejects formal or pedantic upper classes. [1, 2, 3, 4]

Meaning of the Term

  • Voice of the Multitude: A figure who feels the soul and desires of the common crowd living inside himself.
  • Natural Interpreter: Recognized by the people as their true champion and spokesman.
  • ** Populist Appeal:** Pitying the weak and rejecting rigid, traditional religious authorities. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Ernest Renan’s humanistic approach in The Life of Jesus revolutionized biblical criticism by stripping away dogmatic theology. He treated Jesus strictly as a historical man rather than the divine Son of God.

Key Aspects of Renan’s Humanism

  • Secular Biography: Rejects all miracles, resurrections, and supernatural events.
  • Flawed Genius: Portrays Jesus as an extraordinary but ultimately mortal human being.
  • Psychological Realism: Evaluates Jesus’s inner motivations, doubts, and emotional development.
  • Cultural Context: Places Jesus firmly within first-century Jewish and Roman historical realities.
  • Artistic Appreciation: Celebrates Jesus’s moral genius and poetic spirit over his theology.
Jesus

Jesus’s Sabbath Get-Together

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“As Judaism, except in Jerusalem, had, properly speaking, no clergy, the first comer stood up, gave the lessons of the day (parasha and haphtara), and added thereto a midrash, or entirely personal commentary, in which he expressed his own ideas.[5] This was the origin of the “homily,” the finished model of which we find in the small treatises of Philo. The audience had the right of making objections and putting questions to the reader; so that the meeting soon degenerated into a kind of free assembly. It had a president,[6] “elders,”[7] a hazzan, i.e., a recognized reader, or apparitor,[8] deputies,[9] who were secretaries or messengers, and conducted the correspondence between one synagogue and another, a shammash, or sacristan.[10] The synagogues were thus really little independent republics, having an extensive jurisdiction. Like all municipal corporations, up to an advanced period of the Roman empire, they issued honorary decrees,[11] voted resolutions, which had the force of law for the community, and ordained corporal punishments, of which the hazzan was the ordinary executor.[12]

“With the extreme activity of mind which has always characterized the Jews, such an institution, notwithstanding the arbitrary rigors it tolerated, could not fail to give rise to very animated discussions. Thanks to the synagogues, Judaism has been able to sustain intact eighteen centuries of persecution. They were like so many little separate worlds, in which the national spirit was preserved, and which offered a ready field for intestine struggles. A large amount of passion was expended there. The quarrels for precedence were of constant occurrence. To have a seat of honor in the first rank was the reward of great piety, or the most envied privilege of wealth.[1] On the other hand, the liberty, accorded to every one, of instituting himself reader and commentator of the sacred text, afforded marvelous facilities for the propagation of new ideas. This was one of the great instruments of power wielded by Jesus, and the most habitual means he employed to propound his doctrinal instruction.[2] He entered the synagogue, and stood up to read; the hazzan offered him the book, he unrolled it, and reading the parasha or the haphtara of the day, he drew from this reading a lesson in conformity with his own ideas.[3] As there were few Pharisees in Galilee, the discussion did not assume that degree of vivacity, and that tone of acrimony against him, which at Jerusalem would have arrested him at the outset. These good Galileans had never heard discourses so adapted to their cheerful imaginations.[4] They admired him, they encouraged him, they found that he spoke well, and that his reasons were convincing. He answered the most difficult objections with confidence; the charm of his speech and his person captivated the people, whose simple minds had not yet been cramped by the pedantry of the doctors.”

[Footnote 1: Matt. xxiii. 6; Epist. James ii. 3; Talmud of Bab., Sukka, 51 b.]

[Footnote 2: Matt. iv. 23, ix. 35; Mark i. 21, 39, vi. 2; Luke iv. 15, 16, 31, 44, xiii. 10; John xviii. 20.]

[Footnote 3: Luke iv. 16, and following. Comp. Mishnah, Joma, vii. 1.]

[Footnote 4: Matt. vii. 28, xiii. 54; Mark i. 22, vi. 1; Luke iv. 22, 32.]

[Footnote 5: Philo, quoted in Eusebius, Praep. Evang., viii. 7, and Quod Omnis Probus Liber, Sec. 12; Luke iv. 16; Acts xiii. 15, xv. 21; Mishnah, Megilla, iii. 4, and following.]

[Footnote 6: [Greek: Archisunagogos].]

[Footnote 7: [Greek: Presbyteroi].]

[Footnote 8: [Greek: Huperetes].]

[Footnote 9: [Greek: Apostoloi], or [Greek: angeloi].]

[Footnote 10: [Greek: Diakonos]. Mark v. 22, 35, and following; Luke iv. 20, vii. 3, viii. 41, 49, xiii. 14; Acts xiii. 15, xviii. 8, 17; Rev. ii. 1; Mishnah, Joma, vii. 1; Rosh Hasshana, iv. 9; Talm. of Jerus., Sanhedrim, i. 7; Epiph., Adv. Haer., xxx. 4, 11.]

[Footnote 11: Inscription of Berenice, in the Corpus Inscr. Graec., No. 5361; inscription of Kasyoun, in the Mission de Phenicie, book iv. [in the press.]]

[Footnote 12: Matt. v. 25, x. 17, xxiii. 34; Mark xiii. 9; Luke xx. 11, xxi. 12; Acts xxii. 19, xxvi. 11; 2 Cor. xi. 24; Mishnah, Maccoth, iii. 12; Talmud of Babylon, Megilla, 7 b; Epiph., Adv. Haer., xxx. 11.]

Link to The Life of Jesus by Ernest Renan: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/16581/pg16581-images.html