This paper was presented in the Sayings of Jesus Consultation at the 2014 annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society. It argues that in order to understand ancient texts we must pay attention not only the Sitz im Leben... more
This paper was presented in the Sayings of Jesus Consultation at the 2014 annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society. It argues that in order to understand ancient texts we must pay attention not only the Sitz im Leben ([motivating] life situation) of the ancient writer or writers of the text but also tthat of the current interpreters of the text. The failure to recognize this has lead to a great deal of confusion in current Biblical Insterpretation do to the fact that interpreters tend to uncritically attribute their own motives and concerns to ancient writers. In the case of Jesus this has meant recreating Jesus in the image of the ideal human being of our own imagination. In this paper we describe three dominating Sitzen affecting interpreters of our time, in terms of their own spiritual formations and with special reference to the influence of Eastern Thought:
(1) Mainline Protestantism’s Scientistic Monism with its implicit debt to India,
(2) Psychedelic Questers’ Anti-Scientistic Monism, with their explicit embrace of India, and
(3) Third Great Awakening Christians with their explicit rejection of India.
