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Rabbi, revolutionary, or redeemer

 Will the real Jesus please stand up.  The images of Jesus portrayed in Israel and are difficult to follow.  In Nazareth a Muslim banner, obstructing the view of a church, proclaims a quote from the Koran that "God does not beget, nor is he begotten.". While at the same time, the whole community seems to cater to and benefit economically from the pilgrimages.  As Christians, one of our essential claims is that Jesus is eternally begotten.  Human and God in one.  Jesus is still not accepted in his home town.

The Jewish guides I've overheard seem to focus on Jesus' role as a Rabbi.  Jesus would have had a prayer shawl.  Jesus taught the Torah.  Jesus' knowledge came from training, not divinity.  Capernaum was the perfect place for Jesus as it was too small for a full Rabbi.  In Capernaum, Jesus would have been a part-time teacher of the youth and able to spread radical ideas into the surrounding areas. Jesus' teaching are simply too consistent with 1st century rabbinical thought to make too much of a big deal about Jesus.

Or, every word of Jesus must been seen in its political context.  Jesus is a revolutionary who desired to overthrow the oppression of the Romans and lead a non-violent revolution of dissent.  Etc...

Although interesting, each of these theories seem to only contain part of the truth.  They also ignore the fact that Jesus claimed that he could forgive sin.  The forgiveness of sin can only be done by God!  As C.S. Lewis correctly points out in Mere Christianity, Jesus is either God or a mad-man there is not really an in between place left open to us by the gospels.  Jesus is fully human and fully divine.  So, although archeology and history can help more clearly illuminate the life and times in which Jesus lived, they are limited.  For, they alone will ever capture divinity.  It is through faith.  Faith in Jesus Christ that the truth of the creeds are understood in the life of the church.  It is through faith that we come to love and follow the redeemer who seeks to reconcile the world.

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