> Alot of theologians are moving away from just reading the bible, and doing
> more stuff around the "historical jesus." when looked at historically, one
> sees better how radical the jesus movement was.
It's interesting that you say the theologians are moving _away_ from the Bible, and then you cite Gutierrez. Have you read Gutierrez commentary on Job? Or his _The God of Life_, an extended commentary on the Biblical concept of justice and the preferential option for the poor?
I have not read your other authors, but I think many of the Leftist theologians I have read do not move away from the Bible but move closer to it. They embrace its diversity of "inconsistency" and draw out the very radical meaning that can be found there.
As far as inconsistency goes, I wonder whether that matters. In some instances you are talking about documents that are nearly 3,000 years old, with traditions that go farther back than that. What is fascinating to me is the CONSISTENCY that runs through the diversity. In some instances, no doubt, this was (is) an imposed consistency enjoined through doctrine and coercion. Yet, the prophetic tradition seems to be an authentic disruption of such efforts to impose doctrinal monological thinking.
> Just from Watts title, you
> can see there's a problem. He uses "christ," (meaning messiah) rather than
> "jesus"--his name. So there's already alot of theological baggage attached
> to his work. If yu're interested, I'd look at some recent work on jesus
> and then decide if you still think Watts' argument is so compelling.
>
> I can't stress enough the fact that bible interpretations are
> ideologically driven and there is absolutely no reason to believe that
> Watts presents an objective read.
>
True, even the so-called "historical" Jesus people. While I am sympathetic to their political sentiments, I question their reconstructions and avowals of certainty that THAT was who or what Jesus was. Like it or not, Jesus (Christ) is an object of faith whose life and death is either meaningful or not. To try to impose scientific certainty onto this meaning seems to me to be wrong-headed and, in many cases, confused thinking.
chuck miller