___Book Review_______________________________________________________________

JESUS CHRIST: The Man From Nazareth And The Exalted Lord - By Eduard Schweizer.

Published in 1987 by SCM Press: London .

In the following review any quotes used from the book will be referenced by citing the page, italicized in brackets after the text. This book came about in the 1980's when Schweizer was writing articles on both the theme of ‘Jesus Christ' for an encyclopedia in Germany, as well as a biography on Rudolf Bultmann, and was then asked to give two lecture series on these themes in America. This book is a reworking of those efforts.

The book addresses the theme of how we can approach the question of ‘who was Jesus Christ' out of the various theological approaches in the twentieth century. An interesting point in his theological approach, which is reflected in this book, is that; “theological reflections always mirror the experience of their author and should be seen against his or her life to become really alive.” (Preface)

In this book he endeavors to point out that the understanding of the divinity and the humanity of Jesus Christ is best arrived at out of bringing both the post resurrection kerygma (teaching or preaching) and the ministry of Christ as revealed in the gospels together. In fact the one depends on the other.

The Author in his context

Eduard Schweizer died on 27 th June 2006 at the age of 93! He was a personal student of both Rudolf Bultmann and Karl Barth which places him as a theologian in a very powerful time of transition. He was Swiss and lived and worked in a very Lutheran and Calvinistic surrounding. After having spent some time in Germany studying liberal theology, which disappointed him, in what he saw as its opportunistic conclusions, he settled back into finding deeper meaning out of more conservative methods in Switzerland . While studying with Karl Barth, who was in exile in Basel , he was one of four private students who met in Barth's home every fortnight. He became a professor of New Testament Theology in Zurich and in many ways is a theologian who lived in, and was therefore formed by, the transition from the second quest for the historical Jesus, to the third quest during the latter twentieth century.

Schweizer knew the early twentieth century theologians personally as teachers and yet is familiar with the contemporary theologians emerging throughout the end of the century. This is a very important influence in his whole theological approach. This book is a testament to his attempts to show how the various tendencies in thought and styles of the traditions actually need one another to become grounded and centered, rather than falling into creating many different one sided approaches.

The book in the context of the Christology question

This book has as its main theme the exploration of Jesus Christ as fully human and fully divine. In many ways this theme has been a central sticking point in ontological Christology since the emerging church in the first centuries after the resurrection. Schweizer however, works with source material from both the ministry and practices of Jesus and the post resurrection kerygma. He takes the teachings of theologians and brings theme into context with each other and shows us that it is a fantastic way to find a Christology that embraces the full divinity and the full humanity of Christ.

At the same time he works with the strengths and weaknesses of each teaching, doctrine and theology in a sensitive way to coax us into seeing how the various theologies and teachings have been formed by the journey of the thinker and are therefore susceptible to one-sided tendencies. It is in allowing the strengths of the other to support our own journey, and exploring the weaknesses that allow us to come to an embracing of both these sides of Christology.

Summary of the work

Schweizer has written five different, loosely connected essays on various fields exploring how we can understand who Jesus Christ is.

Chapter One: Modern Approaches to Christology 

Starting with his own understanding and experience with Bultmann, Schweizer takes us on a journey with the unfolding realizations within himself and other theologians through the twentieth century, as the weaknesses in Bultmann's ideas became more and more apparent. Two approaches to the question at hand became prevalent for him; the first, epitomized by Bultmann, that promotes that Jesus' ministry gives us an example by which we can live and that the death of Jesus is just a mere event along the way and therefore our understanding comes mostly from the post-Resurrection preaching; and the second, found in Rahner's work, that places an emphasis on the objective change in the world effected by the Christ event and therefore requires us to understand the ministry of Jesus as part of our Christology.

He explores how we as theologians can combine both approaches. “Shall we start from the earthly ministry of Jesus or from the post-Easter kerygma?” ( 8 ) And concludes that “On the one hand, we cannot speak of any detail of the earthly ministry of Jesus without deciding whether or not we see in it God's definitive act of salvation in the sense of the post-Easter kerygma. On the other hand, we cannot say that Jesus is the Christ without the knowledge of who he was in his earthly existence.” ( 13 )

He gives us his methodology of starting with the Christology found in post-Easter kerygma because if we start with our Christology from the point of view the historical Jesus we can all too easily fall into projecting and confusing the human ideas and achievements of Jesus with God! This in many ways flew in the face of the scholars who were working out of the quest for the historical Jesus which he sees largely as liberal theology.

I have spent a rather large section of this review on this chapter as the next three chapters are essentially an application of this idea in his Scholarly areas of expertise and therefore don't require such a large content review.

Chapter Two: Kerygmatic answers in the New Testament

Exploring the confessions of faith, creeds, hymns and preachings that appear in the second Testament and within the post-Easter communities, Schweizer again shows how even though we today work strongly with the idea that many of the teachings about Christ appear as post resurrection understanding within the Christian community, these texts give Christology a character of transcendence, while at the same time pointing to the presence of God in the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus. He leaves this chapter with a clear statement; in trying to find out who Jesus Christ is these forms are not explicitly interested in the earthly ministry and yet are rooted in history. They show the work of God in the salvific life of Jesus and in many ways are the clearest/purest declaration of the full humanity and the full divinity of Jesus Christ. They speak in post-Easter understanding respecting the historical premise of the life of Jesus

Chapter Three: Narrative answers in the New Testament

In this chapter we are exposed again to the two tendencies of Christology, this time through narrative texts, to fall into a Docetic Christology of Jesus being a symbol or example for us in a mythological or transcendent way, and an Ebionite Christology where Jesus is just a human amongst humans.

Schweizer questions these tendencies by following source material in the various Gospels and shows us that there must have been a huge influence of various communities and traditions and their belief systems upon each other in the early Christian communities, thus excluding the need to take on a one-sided Christology.

He lands up in this chapter looking at the Gospel of John as a good example of how the message is “the earthly existence of Jesus, in whose acts and words God himself has encountered mankind in definitive salvation, and in whom the truth has become historical reality.” ( 43 )

Chapter Four: Jesus of Nazareth – God's Christ

In this Chapter Schweizer postulates his own theology. In a short summation he takes us to our own questions of faith by introducing the evolving knowledge of Jesus himself in regard to his Divinity. He brings Jesus' own naming of himself into relationship with Martha's confession to him as the Resurrection and the Life. These are all evolving realizations in awareness of the full reality and therefore are a picture of our own faith. He leaves us with the picture that “faith arises when truth about God is preached into the specific situation of a person” ( 55 ) but at the same time “A Jesus of Nazareth who is not seen in the sense of the post-Easter kerygma as the Christ of God is not Jesus of Nazareth at all.” ( 56 )

In this way he weaves the ideas of this book back into the personal journey of the scholar!

Chapter Five: En route with my teachers 

In this last chapter Schweizer takes us through his own testament to his methodology. He believes, with Bultmann, that the word of God can only be understood existentially. Step by step he takes us through a personal account of all the major people who have, through their thoughts, influenced his own journey around experiencing grace, faith and opening of his mind towards many different traditions including Gnosticism. He has found by embracing the truth from the various traditions, and by including the life and ministry of Christ in the post-Easter kerygma he has himself become Christian. He goes even further and makes the two seeming opposites dependant on each other and this in turn makes us need to find faith, as an open heart, to the full variety of expressions of Christology, without forgetting to be grounded and aware of exactly which aspects we are in agreement with and which ones we don't agree with. The way we can do this is in a scholarly way to begin from the kerygma of the post-Easter church. In this way our journey as Christians can make us theologians. (And visa-versa!)

Theological reflections

For me Schweizer had the courage to put into question three things: his own teachers; the loose suppositions of liberal theology; and the need for absolute objectivity in the quest for the historical Jesus. He tested these methods and found that neither theology nor theologians are neutral or objective! This is one of his contributions to the field of Christology. By acknowledging that our theology is hugely influenced by our journey we become humble and inclusive of others in our realizations. This in turn makes theology a group or community faith experience. It demythologizes theology and grounds it in our religious experience without loosing the criteria for true critical reasoning around the teachings of the bible. A fantastic symphony of personal experience balanced with the guidelines of non doctrinal texts and enquiry gives each person their own theological authority.

His approach is at once disarming in that it is so personal and frank and yet challenging in that it is so scholarly. He weaves a style of writing that creates a safe theological premise, but at the same time encourages, possibly even forces, us to engage with questioning our own Christology and faith. He is possibly one of the earlier theologians to open up this style of writing in the last forty years.

For me he has confirmed the insight that theology, faith, religion and worship are not various choices we make but, just as the full humanity and the full divinity of Christ depend on one another, so too do these various aspects of our spiritual religious lives.

For me Schweizer succeeded in what he set out to do as it has set me on fire. It is a long time since I have read a book that has been so deeply confirming of my own path yet gives a very founded faith in the full humanity and full divinity of Christ. He has in a short ninety pages set to rest a source of much strife in Christian history by placing it the domain of the personal faith of the individual in their journey with the ontological Christology.

I am not sure if it is because I already have accepted the truth of this teaching that I find this book so inspiring. I have struggled with the quest for the historical Jesus, not because it isn't necessary, but because it denies to a point a personal religious, faith journey to accompany ones theological realizations. Here is a like minded theologian, who in short shrift allays all those needs of the theological tendencies of the seventies and eighties. So I find myself without criticism or question, but land up with a sense of relief that my own theological journey is justified.

Martin Samson

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