Joseph Ratzinger wrote his brilliant book: Jesus of Nazareth.From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration, translated from the German by Adrian J.Walker, Doubleday, New Yor-London-Toronto-Sydney-Auckland, 2007, xxiv-374 pp.(355, Glossary, 357-364, Bibliography, 365-374:
In this book Joseph Ratzinger, the theologian and the believer, discovers the true identity of Jesus in the Gospels. He shares with the readers his conviction about Jesus of Nazareth, the central figure of the Christian faith. Who is Jesus? What did he bring to us, to the whole humankind, to the world? What did he bring? The simple answer is that he brought God to the world. He brought world peace, universal prosperity, and a better world.
This book about Jesus is the first part of the whole project. He explains the genesis of this book: when he was growing up he found a series of inspiring books by Karl Adam, Romano Guardini, Franz Michel William, Giovanni Papini and Henri Daniel-Rops. They presented Jesus as fully human and as Son of God, as it is depicted in the Gospels. Later on there was the distinction between the “historical Jesus” and the “Christ of faith”. There was a problem of identity with the Christ of the Gospels.
There was a dichotomy between man Jesus and the picture that the Evangelists painted of him, the basis of the Church’s preaching. As historical-critical scholarship advanced, it led to finer and finer distinctions between layers of tradition in the Gospels, beneath which the real object of faith–the figure (Gestalt) of Jesus- became increasingly obscured and blurred. At the same time, though, the reconstructions of this Jesus (who could only be discovered by going behind the traditions and sources used by the Evangelists) became more and more incompatible with one another: at one end of the spectrum, Jesus was the anti-Roman revolutionary working–though finally failing–to oerthrow the ruling powers at the other end, he was the meek moral teacher who approes everything and unaacountably comes to grief. These reconstructions may not be icons of a real person, but photographs and ideals of the authors. There is skepticism about these portrayals of Jesus. All these attempts have created the impression that we have very little certainty about Jesus and that faith in his divinity was shaped only at a later stage.
Rudolf Schnackenburg himself has admitted that there can be insecurity through scientific research and critical discussion, but we have to hold fast to faith in the person of Jesus Christ as the bringer of salvation and Saviour of the world. A genuinely historical insight is Jesus’ relatedness to God and the closeness to God. Without anchoring in God, the person of Jesus remains shadowy, unreal, and unexplainable. Jesus should be seen in the light of his communion withthe Father, which is the true centre of his personality; without it, we cannot understand him at all, and it is from this centre that he makes himself present to us still today.
The historical-critical method has been in use in Catholic theology ever since the door was opened for it by the encyclical Divino Afflante Spireitu (DAS) of Pius XII in 1943. This encyclical was an important milestone for Catholic exegesis. There has been progress in strictly historical work and in the interplay between theology and historical method in scriptural interpretation. We have also Dei Verbum of Vatican II, and the documents of the Pontifical Biblical Commission: The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church (Vatican City, 1993) and The Jewish People and Their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible (Vatican City, 2001).
The historical-critical method is and remains an indispensable dimension of exegetical work.
Scribbling 