Ich finde es erstaunlich, wie oft das Leben Jesu als Beispiel für diese oder jene Kulturtheorie, dieses oder jenes Verhalten, dieses oder jenes kulturelle Engagement herhalten muss. Auch wenn ich Klaas Schilders Buch “Christ and Culture” (engl. Übersetzung von 1977; niederländisches Original datiert 1948) nicht über die ganze Länge zustimmen kann, stellt er gerade diese exegetischen Verzerrungen, die über dem Leben von Jesus gemacht werden, auf eindrückliche Art richtig. Zum Beispiel hier (Abschnitt 9):
He withdrew partners from a flourishing fishing business, James and John. He made, no, not some masked culture types but unmasked fishermen, even from Galilee, follow Him, the Nazarene. One of them speaks his own dialect when he timidly slips into the court-room where the great court-case of the world is decided. He heals lepers, although sporadically; however, He does not establish leper houses. He opens the eyes of the blind — again, sporadically — but He leaves others in their blindness; at any rate, He does not establish an organization for the support of the blind. For such a miracle He once uses mud. Although He is offered a royal crown, He does not accept it. He makes His entry into the capital while sitting on the young of an ass. He deals carefully with servants, and when one of His disciples injures the ear of a certain slave called Malchus, He heals the man; but it is in vain that one looks for the beginning of an Association for the Abolition of Slavery. He looks those who have been possessed by demons deep into the eyes and leads them to the light; however, He never built a clinic, and did not make any preparations for that — at least, not in any direct sense. And the authors called by Him later on issue books, gospels, that show a complete lack of any artistic style and that are written in the common language of the people. Again we ask: Does one make any progress by trying to define and solve the problem with the help of this sort of details? Can one in this way even contribute to its solution?
Das Missverständnis entsteht dann, wenn nicht mehr das Amt und der Auftrag Christi im Zentrum der Evangelien stehen. Schilder in Abschnitt 12:
Not to get married was a command for Him alone. His office was to suffer and die. His office consisted of a struggle against God and against Satan at the turning-point of the ages. His office was: to be the second Adam; that is, to establish a community of men. this time not of one blood, as a living soul, but from one Spirit as a quickening pneuma. It commissions Him to rule over a large nation, not because this nation has in common the same strongly beating blood nor a common struggle and triumph, but on the judicial ground of the unique sacrifice of the blood that flowed forth only from His broken body.
