As I work on my paper I keep asking myself why? After all there has been close to 2,000 years of study on Jesus. I keep thinking, will I ever be able to introduce something new? I figure probably not. My question then is, Will I be satisfied to simply repeat the findings of others? Why continue to write what others have written? Why continue to repeat what others say?

While  I debate things things in my head, I read this from John P. Meier in the book A Marginal Jew:

…each biblical scholar — indeed, any educated person interested in Christian origins — cannot avoid the challenge of facing and answering key questions for himself or herself…. There are certain great questions that each human being has to work out for himself or herself. We learn from past quests, to be sure, but we cannont substitute the lessons of others for our own personal wrestling with the central problems of life, problems that each person must face squarely alone. In effect, my fellow student was quoting Plato back to the professor: the unexamined life is not worth living — and it is an examination we cannot pay someone else to take for us.

If this be true of every preson’s need to search for answers about the nature of truth, the reality of God, the meaning of life and death and what may lie beyond, it is also true of every educated Chrsitain’s need to search for answers about the reality and meaning of the man named Jesus. To be sure, a student first learns from studies done by others — but only to decide how best to grapple with the probelm firsthand; that is what eductaion is all about…

With that…it is back to the books ;)

Dave.