How fascinating, E! What is the over-all theme of the book your husband is writing?
I checked out Allison's book, but of course it has not been reviewed yet. It looks as if he is following in the footsteps of Albert Schweitzer, who argued -- very persuasively, in my opinion -- that Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet, who expected the end of the world to come "before this generation shall pass away". If I recall correctly, Schweitzer also argued (less persuasively, to my mind) that Jesus expected that his martyrdom would actually provoke God into ending it (the world, that is); and when that did not happen, Jesus knew his life had been a failure (My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?). Sad.
If Allison is trying to revive this view, in opposition to those Jesus Seminar people, who have blackballed 80% of the Gospels as "inauthentic", more power to him. (IMO, these guys are insensitive to the poetry and the tragedy of the Gospels.) And I think that calling Jesus -- if he was indeed a millenarian -- a "nut case" is too strong. What is nutty for the 20th century would not have been nutty for the first. (I think that was one of Schweitzer's points as well.)
BTW, I did a lot of research on eschatological movements throughout the world, and throughout history, for my dissertation. Yet I myself am a skeptic. I don't really know why I am drawn to this sort of thing...
Joan |
