Jesus or Nietzsche

How Should We Live Our Lives?
Erscheinungsjahr 2013
ISBN: 978-90-420-3658-1
Verlag: Brill | Rodopi

Buch, Englisch, Band 259, 231 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 535 g

Reihe: Value Inquiry Book Series / Ethical Theory and Practice

This book reconstructs the cornerstones of Jesus’s moral teachings about how to lead a good, even exemplary, human life. It does so in a way that is compatible with the most prominent, competing versions of the historical Jesus. The work also contrast Jesus’ understanding of the best way to lead our lives with that of Friedrich Nietzsche. Both Jesus and Nietzsche were self-consciously moral revolutionaries. Jesus refashioned the imperatives of Jewish law to conform to what he was firmly convinced was the divine will. Nietzsche aspired to transvalue the dominant values of his time —which themselves were influenced greatly by Christianity— in service of what he took to be a higher vision. The interplay of these radical versions of the good human life, seasoned with critical commentary emerging from modern findings in the sciences and humanities, opens possibilities and lines of inquiry that can inform our choices in answering that enduring, paramount question, “How should we live our lives?”

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Bibelwissenschaften Neues Testament: Exegese, Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Geschichte der Westlichen Philosophie Westliche Philosophie: 19. Jahrhundert
• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Systematische Theologie Ethik, Moraltheologie, Sozialethik
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Ethik, Moralphilosophie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Editorial Foreword by Olli Loukola
Preface
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
Introduction
Nietzsche’s Life
Problems of Interpretation in Nietzsche
My (Mis)Interpretation of Nietzsche
Jesus: The Nature of Our World and Our Mission in It
Family Relations
Associating and Identifying with Undesirables
Unsettling Established Rituals
Interrogating Prevailing Norms of Just Distribution
Material Minimalism
Jesus and the Concept of Forgiveness
Nietzsche: The Nature of Our World and Our Mission in It
Perspectivism
Genealogical Critiques
Crafting a Worthy Self
Values
Nietzsche’s Glad Tidings
Master and Slave Moralities
Going Beyond Good and Evil
Eternal Recurrence
Philosophy and Psychology
Style and Rhetoric
Tragic View of Life
Jesus and Nietzsche
Fundamental Understandings of Human Beings: Unconditional Love and the Will to Power
The Power of Unconditional Love
The Paradoxes of Agapic Love
Parental Agape
The Will to Power
The Last Man and The Overman
Nietzsche on Jesus
Nietzsche on St. Paul and Christianity
Nietzsche’s Understanding of Jesus
Jesus and Engagement in this World
Daunting Normative Ideals
The Perfectionism of Jesus
Perfectionism and Unconditional Love
Extending Unconditional Love
Unconditional Love and Abstraction
A Summary of the Perfectionism of Jesus
The Ethic of Jesus and Contemporary Philosophy
Jesus’ Enduring Message
The Perfectionism of Nietzsche
Nietzsche’s Vision
Aristocratic Privilege
A Summary of the Perfectionism of Nietzsche
The Perfectionism of Nietzsche and Contemporary Philosophy
Jesus and Nietzsche: Toward a Synthesis
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the Author

Über Autor(innen)

Raymond Angelo Belliotti is SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Fredonia. He has published thirteen other books including Justifying Law (1992), Good Sex (1993), What is the Meaning of Human Life? (2001), Happiness is Overrated (2004), Dante’s Deadly Sins (2011), and Shakespeare and Philosophy (2012). Belliotti has received the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, the William T. Hagan Young Scholar/Artist Award, the Kasling Lecture Award for Excellence in Research and Scholarship, and the SUNY Foundation Research and Scholarship Recognition Award.