Jeffrey Gibson

How can it be a test case for his theory if he already (but wholly inaccurately) knows -- as he most certainly does -- apart from the NT who "Christ" is?

Moreover, is Brunner's view of who "Christ" is what proves his (questionable) ontological and anthropological theory or does his theory show you who "Christ" is? You seem to be wanting to have it both ways, even though for the latter to be true, Brunner's ontological and anthropological theories have to be assumed and/or taken to be true for them to have the explanatory power that you claim they have.

And can you name any philosopher who thinks either that Brunner's ontological and anthropological theories are true or that his (manufactured) Jesus proves them?

Jeffrey

No Robots

Yep. Taught it for many years.

No, the quotation is from Tilliette. I was quoting Tilliette to Tilliette on his facebook page.

I regularly search "Constantin Brunner" in google books. It's sometimes hard to get the correct citation for snippet views from journals, but I managed to work this one out. If you are still suspicious, I would be glad to send you a scan of Tilliette's review.

Jeffrey Gibson

Funny that he doesn't remember saying what is attributed to him.

In any case, this does nothing to show that Brunner's view of Jesus is correct nor that Brunner's views on Judaism and the origins of the Gospels are anything worth listening to.


Jeffrey

No Robots

If you look closely, you'll see that it isn't actually Tilliette who responds on the Facebook page, but someone acting as an amanuensis.

Jeffrey Gibson

So what? It still does nothing to show that Brunner's view of Jesus is correct or that Brunner's views on Judaism, Jesus, and the origins of the Gospels are anything worth listening to.

Jeffrey

No Robots

There is also this assement of Brunner's Our Christ (my translation, followed by the German original):

An extraordinary book, one must say, a new, singular testimony to the fascinating power that flows from the figure of Jesus. That "Christ is a genius" is what the author demonstrates with the evidence presented in this book. Here a philosopher of atheism composes a beautiful hymn to Christ; here a Spinozist makes available the entirety of his shrewd speculation in order to prove the paramount grandeur of the phenomenon of Christ. The book provides much food for thought, and can in no wise be rejected as a literary curiosity. For in this singular reinterpretation of classic Judaism and classic Christology, the problem of the typology of religion steps to the fore, which is the very question that is supposed to be illuminated in the present investigation: the actual dividing line between Judaism and Christianity. In the background, yet another question poses itself: What logical affinity connects the pure monotheism of Judaism with "Spinozist" atheism?

Ein seltsames Buch, muss man sagen, ein neues, eigenartiges Zeugnis von der faszinierenden Kraft, die von der Gestalt Jesu ausgeht. Dass "Christus ein Genie" ist, das hat der Verfasser mit diesem buch zur Evidenz bewiesen, denn hier dichtet ein philosoph des Atheismus einen schönen Christushymnus, und hier stellt ein Spinozist seine ganze scharfsinnige Spekulation zur Verfügung, um die überragende Grösse der Christuserscheinung zu beweisen. Das buch gibt in vieler Hinsicht zu denken und kann keineswegs als eine literarische Kuriosität abgewiesen werden. Denn in dieser eigenartigen Umdeutung des klassischen Judentums und der klassischen Christologie tritt das religionstypologische Problem hervor, das in dieser Untersuchung beleuchtet werden soll: die eigentliche Scheidelinie zwischen Judentum und Christentum. Im Hintergrund erinnert noch eine andere Frage an ihre Existenz: Welche logische Affinität verbindet den reinen Monotheismus des Judentums mit dem "spinozistischen" Atheismus?

--Die Jesusfrage im neuzeitlichen Judentum; ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung / Lindeskog, Gösta. Almqvist & Wiksell 1938, p. 125-6.

No Robots

I would also point out Brunner receives a positive assessment in the article on Spinoza in the Catholic Encyclopedia, where we read:

Very important for Spinoza's teaching is BRUNNER, Die Lehre von den Geistigen und vom Volke, I, pt. II (Berlin, 1908).

Jeffrey Gibson

The very fact that Brunner thought he could speak of "classic Judaism" and "classic Christology", let interpret the NT from and within these categories, shows both that he skews his evidence to fit his a priori and that his work is worthless for gaining any sense of what 1st century Christians believed about Jesus. It is wholesale and rank eisegesis.

Jeffrey

No Robots

"Classic Judaism" and "classic Christology" are the words of the reviewer, not Brunner.

Jeffrey Gibson

Great. Except that we are not concerned with Spinoza's philosophical teaching, are we.

Jeffrey