Around twenty years or so after his death, the fiery and interesting Jewish teacher Jesus of Nazareth was made into the personification of his own teaching, and given an exalted cosmic status. Within a few decades he had been so completely buried by supernatural beliefs about himself that in all the years since it has been very difficult to make out his own voice, and quite impossible to take him seriously as a thinker. ""Jesus and Philosophy"" asks on the basis of recent reconstructions of his teaching, what was Jesus' moral philosophy' What was his world view' And, is he a big enough figure in the history of ethics to survive the end of the classic ecclesiastical beliefs about him' The author, Don Cupitt, argues that Jesus will be bigger after Christianity, which blocked the realization of just how revolutionary a figure he was.
The Revd Don Cupitt was a Life Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. His books include Taking Leave of God, The Sea of Faith and Solar Ethics were published by SCM Press and translated into many languages.