Book launch - "Jesus and the Rise of Nationalism"

Project (NRC) Jesus in Cultural Complexity, Faculty of Theology, University of Oslo presents:

Halvor Moxnes' Jesus and the Rise of Nationalism. A new quest for the nineteenth century historical Jesus. (I.B. Tauris, 2012.)

 

Panel:

Ward Blanton, University of Glasgow,   Leif Vaage, Emmanuel College in the University of  Toronto,  Aud Tønnessen, University of  Oslo, Alex Wrigth, I.B. Tauris.

Research on the historical Jesus has so far been studied within the context of theology and church life. In this book Moxnes views the foundation period of the study of the historical Jesus within the political context of Europe in the 19th century. This was the period when nationalism and the nation state became dominant in Europe. The book studies presentations of Jesus by the most influential scholars from different parts of Europe with different forms of nationalism: F. Schleiermacher and D.F.Strauss in Germany, E. Renan in France and G.A. Smith in Great Britain. The book shows how the images of Jesus participated in the discussions of national indentities in terms of citizens’ rights, gender roles and relations to ‘the other’.
This study is also relevant for the relations between religion and politics at the present. It questions the dominant role of nationalism and the nation state as political and ideological models in today’s world, and argues that historical Jesus studies should present Jesus in a universal perspective, ‘beyond nationalism’.
Halvor Moxnes is a professor in theology at the University of Oslo, and in his most recent studies has focused on the historical Jesus in the first century, and in history of interpretation, in both instances working with perspctives from the social sciences and politics.  He chairs, with Marianne Bjelland Kartow, an international research project (NRC) ‘Jesus in Cultural Complexity.’

 

Recent publications by Halvor Moxnes:

Hva er kristendom. Universitetsforlaget, 2006

Putting Jesus in His Place. A Radical Vision of Household and Kingdom. Westminster John Knox Press, 2003.


With Ward Blanton og James C. Crossley (eds.), Jesus Beyond Nationalism: Constructing the Historical Jesus in a Period of Cultural Complexity. Equinox Publishing, 2009.
 

Published Sep. 14, 2011 7:59 AM