Sublime

the focus on Jesus as a continuous human subject, born, maturing, dying.

Jesus must be understood as a comprehensible and yet, so to speak, crucifiable first-century Jew, whatever the theological or hermeneutical consequences.

this general thrust, of a very Jewish Jesus who was nevertheless opposed to some high-profile features of first-century Judaism, seems to me the most viable one if we are to do justice, not just to the evidence of the synoptic gospels (they, after all, are easy game for any critic who wants to avoid their implications) but more particularly to the

At the same time it would clearly both challenge some prevailing assumptions within that Jewish context and retain a special focus which would be characteristic only of Jesus’ career, not of the work of his post-Easter followers. It must be set within Judaism, but as a challenge; it must be the presupposition for the church, but not the blueprint.

The fulfillment of Israel’s story in the story of the Messiah is the foundational charter of the church.

The Seminar announced to its public that the real Jesus was innocent of the wicked apocalypticism with which so many Christians, not least in the conservative American churches against which American academics react so strongly, had for so long associated him.