Book Description

This book is the second of two volumes which reflect on the trend in biblical scholarship that contrasts the vision of the historical Jesus with that of the apostle Paul, on the one hand, and the vision of Paul with that of the evangelist Matthew, on the other. It argues that Jesus replaced the concept of ‘politics of holiness’ with that of ‘politics of compassion’. This means that the church as a community of Jesus-followers forms a fictive family, replacing a soteriology grounded in the biological family. God’s adoption of people as ‘God’s children’ is based on the potential of people to absorb the divine into their humanity. This truism is to be found in the visions shared by the peasant Jesus, the apostle Paul and the rabbi Matthew, as well as in creedal Christianity. The book concludes with autobiographical reflective notes, analogous to the parabolic story of the travellers to Emmaus from Jerusalem (Luke 24) and that of the African eunuch (Acts 8) on his way back from Jerusalem to Africa. The notes serve to consolidate the two volumes on Jesus, Paul and Matthew and their messages of God’s wisdom, justice and mercy.