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Jesus: A Life in Class Conflict Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2024-03-12 Louise J. Lawrence
This is a review article of James Crossley’s and Robert Myle’s, Jesus in Class Conflict (2023). After a chapter by chapter summary, the review provides some assorted critical reflections on among other issues the ‘biographical’ approach still apparent here, despite a critical effort to distance from ‘great man’ approaches to history.
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Jesus: A Life in Class Conflict Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2024-03-08 Megan Wines
This essay is a review of Jesus: A Life in Class Conflict by James Crossley and Robert J. Myles, a historical materialist exploration of what we know about the life of Jesus and the Jesus movement in first-century Roman Palestine. This review focuses particularly on the ways in which Crossley and Myles engage with considerations of gender and masculinity as part of their engagement with the historical
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Thoughts Turned to Jesus (or someone very probably, almost certainly, clearly somewhat like him) on Reading Crossley and Myles, Jesus Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2024-03-07 Robert Paul Seesengood
This essay is an extended review of, and engagement with, James Crossley and Robert J. Myles’s Jesus: A Life in Class Conflict (2023). The review particularly commends them for a work which addresses the difficult question of whether one is able to recover an ‘historical’ figure from tradition, and notes that effort, in many ways, becomes a compelling form of reception criticism. It notes, as well
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What Made the Jesus Movement Tick? Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2024-03-05 James Crossley, Robert J. Myles
This article offers a rejoinder to the five critical reviews appearing in jshj of the book by James Crossley and Robert J. Myles, Jesus: A Life in Class Conflict (Zer0 Books, 2023).
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Parapsychology, Hallucinations, Collective Delusions, and Jesus’ Post-Resurrection Appearances: A Response to Glenn Siniscalchi Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2023-10-18 Stephen H. Smith
After a brief outline of Glenn Siniscalchi’s apology for the traditional approach to the post-resurrection appearances, I examine his particular view that any attempt to compare the appearances of Jesus with the various apparitions discussed by parapsychologists is doomed to failure. Siniscalchi states, correctly, that the only category of apparitions worthy of consideration at all is the ‘post-mortem
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Is Name Popularity a Good Test of Historicity?: A Statistical Evaluation of Richard Bauckham’s Onomastic Argument Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2023-09-28 Kamil Gregor, Brian Blais
In Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, Richard Bauckham argues that the popularity of personal names in Gospels-Acts corresponds remarkably well to name popularity among late ancient Palestinian Jews and that this can only be the case if Gospels-Acts characters are in most cases historical as opposed to invented in the process of ‘anonymous community transmission’. We re-examine Bauckham’s conclusions, asserted
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Subjugating Subjectivity: Why Wright’s Critical Realism is Not Critical Enough Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2023-07-13 Aaron Chidgzey
This analysis of N. T. Wright’s epistemological model – labelled critical realism – argues that Wright has lamentably failed the ambitious goal of mediating the two epistemic poles of external ‘objective’ reality and internal ‘subjective’ interpretation. The issues raised by scholars of the so-called ‘critical’ end of the dichotomy have subsequently failed to be considered to any significant degree
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Pilate Delivered Jesus to Them: Mark 15.15 in Ancient Versions and in Anti-Jewish Narratives Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2023-04-20 Tamás Visi
Some of the ancient manuscripts and versions of Mark 15.15 add the phrase ‘to them’ after the verb ‘[Pilate] delivered [Jesus]’, suggesting that Pilate delivered Jesus to the Jewish crowd who subsequently crucified him. This textual variant was well-established in the Syriac and Ethiopic traditions while it remained marginal in the Greek, Latin, and Coptic traditions. This pattern suggests that those
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The Quest for the Historical Jesus, 2000–2023 Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2023-04-04 Brandon Massey
This article provides a bibliography of historical Jesus research from 2000 to 2023 in German and English language publications. In addition to the bibliography, a brief introductory essay identifies trends in historical Jesus research.
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Jesus as ‘Rabbi/Rabbouni’ and Mark’s Use of Aramaic as Messianic Code Language Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2023-02-10 Mark Verman
Jesus is referred to as Rabbi or Rabbouni on four occasions in Mark. Most scholars assume that it was a commonplace term during Jesus’ lifetime and it is a Hebrew synonym for Teacher. It will be posited that it was not in use during the early decades of the first century ce and that it is actually an Aramaic term utilized by Mark and endowed with a messianic valence. This will be viewed within the
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Mary Magdalene and the Life of Judith in Life of Brian Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2022-12-03 James Crossley
This article provides a snapshot of how Mary Magdalene was understood in 1970s Britain through the character of Judith in Monty Python’s Life of Brian. Judith as presented in Life of Brian is compared with Mary Magdalene as presented in Jesus Christ Superstar, especially the receptions of the hit musical in newspapers of the time where there was a recurring focus on sexuality and gender stereotypes
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Redeeming Mary, Redeeming Jesus Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2022-12-03 Matthew S. Rindge
This article argues that Martin Scorsese’s Mary Magdalene is as unique as Scorsese’s Jesus; she plays an integral role in the film, both in her own journey, and as a central catalyst in Jesus’ transformation. In these and other ways, The Last Temptation of Christ both redeems Mary Magdalene and portrays her as a redeemer of Jesus.
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‘Tis Pity She’s (Still) a Whore: Mary Magdalene in The Chosen Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2022-12-02 Rhonda Burnette-Bletsch
Early Jesus films reveled in the traditional, historically inaccurate interpretation of Mary Magdalene as a penitent prostitute. While films produced since the 1980s are less heavy-handed in explicitly sexualizing or shaming Mary, promiscuity remains her most persistent trait. Traces of the penitent prostitute are detectable in The Chosen, a crowd-funded evangelical series on the life of Jesus which
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On Chickens, Eggs, and the Birthplace of Jesus Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2022-11-26 Jonathan Rowlands
In this article, the author challenges the consensus surrounding Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem. This consensus claims the Bethlehem birth was a fabrication posited as messianic fulfilment of Micah 5.2. First, the author summarises the majority position on the issue. Second, the author problematises the notion that there was an expectation regarding Bethlehem as messianic birthplace. Third, the author claims
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Mary Magdalene and the Dangers of White Feminism Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2022-11-23 Meredith J. C. Warren
The film Mary Magdalene (2018) has been praised for its focus on one of Jesus’ most overlooked followers. But the film includes subtly negative depictions of Jewishness as well as problematic depictions of Black characters. Despite the film’s stated attempts to reflect first-century contexts, cinematic decisions reinforce harmful stereotypes about Judaism and about Black men. Viewing the film in light
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Mary Magdalene in Film: Response jshj Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2022-11-23 Joan E. Taylor
This essay responds to the four essays concerning the portrays of Mary Magdalene in film and television for the Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus.
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Did Jesus Befriend Sex Workers? Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2022-11-22 Anthony Le Donne
This article examines the source material that gave rise to the notion that Jesus befriended sex workers. It considers the first and century evidence. It turns then to medieval fiction for the source of this misunderstanding.
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Magdalene Response Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2022-11-16 Richard Walsh
This response essay responds to the articles on Mary Magdalene in film by James Crossley, Matthew Rindge, Meredith J. C. Warren, and Rhonda Burnette-Bletsch.
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Remarks on Tucker S. Ferda, Jesus, the Gospels and the Galilean Crisis Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2022-07-19 Jens Schröter
This article is an appreciative and critical engagement with Tucker Ferda’s book, Jesus, the Gospels, and the Galilean Crisis.
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The Galilean Crisis and Jesus Research Past and Present Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2022-05-31 Tucker Samson Ferda
The author offers a grateful reply to his three respondents before clarifying a few matters and responding to queries. Nothing emerges that would require modifications to the main arguments of the book.
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An Inconsistent Truth? Reflections on Tucker Ferda’s Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2022-05-31 Sarah E. Rollens
This article reviews Tucker Ferda’s recent book on the Galilean Crisis Theory, a scholarly theory that holds that Jesus encountered hostility and rejection in Galilee, which spurred significant changes in his mission, including his rather abrupt transition to Jerusalem. This lucid and deftly executed study charts the development of this scholarly theory, before offering its own assessment of Jesus’
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Jesus, the Gospels, and the Galilean Crisis, by Tucker Ferda Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2022-05-31 Paula Fredriksen
This article explores the historiographical consequences of depending on Markan chronology to reconstruct Jesus’s mission. Mark highlights a “Galilean crisis” as well as the scene in the temple courts (Mk 11:18) as twinned moments of dramatic reversal (peripeteia) that serve to drive his story home to its conclusion, connecting Jesus’s Jewish mission with his Roman death. Analyzing Jesus, the Gospels
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Jesus Against the Forces of Death: Reading Matthew Thiessen’s Reading of the Gospels’ Reading of Jesus’ War Against Ritual Impurity Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2022-02-15 Anders Runesson
Thiessen’s book is a systematic attempt at making obsolete an entire research paradigm, which has portrayed Jesus and the gospels as targeting for eradication the Jewish purity system itself, understood as an oppressive social mechanism with which the elite controlled the masses, rather than these texts describing a war against the impurity that this system defined and was meant to control. This essay
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Josephus’s Paraphrase Style and the Testimonium Flavianum Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2021-11-11 Gary J. Goldberg
The controversial account of Jesus in Josephus’s Jewish Antiquities 18.63–64, known as the Testimonium Flavianum, has puzzling similarities to Luke 24.18–24, a portion of the Emmaus narrative. This article proposes an explanation based on established research into Josephus’s methods of composition. Through a phrase-by-phrase study, this article finds that the Testimonium can be derived from the Emmaus
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The Next Quest for the Historical Jesus Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2021-09-24 James Crossley
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Can Study of the Historical Jesus Escape its Typographical Captivity? Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2021-06-28 Richard A. Horsley
As part of the deepening diversification of biblical studies, several lines of research are now undermining the print-cultural assumptions on which New Testament studies developed. The first section offers summaries of important inquiries into ancient communications media: the dominant oral communication and the uses of writing; revisionist text-criticism of manuscripts of texts later included in the
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Analogies, Possibilities and Probabilities: Joel Marcus’s John the Baptist Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2021-04-29 Jonathan Klawans
This essay dialogues with Joel Marcus’s volume on John the Baptist. After praising Marcus’s penchant for introducing helpful analogies, questions are raised regarding two of Marcus’s hypotheses. First, it is difficult to accept that the Baptist was ever associated with the Qumran sectarians; second, it is equally doubtful that the Baptist was a nuanced legal reformer. A third section probes additional
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Catching John in Four Nets? Competition, Qumran, Sacramentalism and Messianism: A Reply to Joel Marcus Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2021-04-29 Federico Adinolfi, Joan Taylor
In his recent study on John the Baptist Joel Marcus suggests that John founded a sect that was in competition with the early Jesus movement. Marcus also suggests that John himself was a former member of the 'Qumran community'. His baptism is considered as a kind of sacrament in which the Holy Spirit was imparted. How secure are these proposals? In this discussion, we conclude that in the oldest literary
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John the Baptist in Memory, Judaism and Historical Materialism Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2021-04-29 Robert J. Myles
Joel Marcus’s JBHT argues that John would have seen himself not as forerunner to Jesus but rather that he, and not Jesus, was the proclaimer and inaugurator of God’s apocalyptic kingdom. The historical Baptist, originally part of the Qumran community, broke away from this group due to his belief that he himself was the prophet Elijah and that his own ministry was central to God’s purposes. This article
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John the Baptist: The Absinthe of the Divine Feast? Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2021-04-29 Albert I. Baumgarten
My contribution focuses on the ‘Competition Thesis’ between John, Jesus and their disciples in reconstructing the life of the Baptist. One great merit of JBHT is adopting the Competition Thesis. When summarizing, guided by the Competition Thesis, Marcus first plays the devil’s advocate, enumerating the reasons that John should be seen as an independent figure claiming for himself the leading place
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Naturalizing Christians: A Response to Joel Marcus, John the Baptist in History and Theology Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2021-04-29 Erin Roberts
This essay examines the conceptual framework that informs Marcus’s distinction between history and theology, and considers what stands to be gained by this manner of classification. The essay observes that Marcus’s classification hinges upon a theory of religion that views gospels as artifacts expressive of sincere belief and, further, suggests this approach serves to mystify the origins of the Christian
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Reflections on John the Baptist in History and Theology by Joel Marcus Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2021-04-29 Cecilia Wassén
In this article, I engage with Joel Marcus’s recent book on John the Baptist, focusing on the relationship between John and the Dead Sea Scrolls. While I appreciate many parts of his detailed study, I question the claim that John was a former member of the Essenes. Although there are intriguing similarities, the question is how far reaching conclusions we may draw concerning such a relationship. I
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Response to the Respondents: Competition, Qumran and Supersessionism Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2021-04-29 Joel Marcus
The critics of JBHT in this issue have questioned three main aspects of the book: its assertion that early Christians competed with people who believed that John the Baptist was the principal figure in the history of salvation, its assertion that early in his career the Baptist was a member of the Qumran community, and the way in which the book situates the Baptist in relation to Second Temple Judaism
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A Review of Joel Marcus, John the Baptist in History and Theology Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2021-04-29 Clare K. Rothschild
This essay offers a brief review of Joel Marcus, John the Baptist in History and Theology.
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The Speech-Acts of a Royal Pretender: Jesus’ Performative Utterances in Mark’s Gospel Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2021-06-02 James M. Scott
Performative speech-acts were used by successive Seleucid pretenders and kings to create the appearance of power and authority out of weakness. As we have seen on the basis of Mark’s Gospel, Jesus’ used performative utterances in a similar way, and, for that reason, he was recognized as a royal pretender by both sympathizers and critics alike. From the perspective of Mark’s Gospel, Jesus set about
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John the Baptist in History and Theology Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2021-04-29 Joel Marcus
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Audience in Historical Jesus Research: The Cases of Wright and Crossan Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2021-03-25 Arthur E. Walzer
Scholars writing within the historical Jesus research paradigm often write different books on the same topic: heavy tomes for other scholars and shorter books on the same subject for lay readers. While the scholarly works have been reviewed by other scholars, the books for lay readers have not. This article analyzes works on the historical Jesus for lay readers authored by N.T. Wright and John Dominic
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Did Jesus Anticipate Suffering a Violent Death?: The Implications of Memory Research and Dale C. Allison’s Methodology Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2020-09-03 Michael Patrick Barber
This article enters into the debate over the place of memory studies in Jesus research by examining the question of whether or not Jesus anticipated his demise, analyzing the method and arguments of Dale Allison’s, Constructing Jesus (2010) as a test case. It responds to criticisms of Allison’s work, demonstrating that his approach relies on more than a mere appeal to the general trustworthiness of
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“I Shall be Reckoned with the Gods”: On Redescribing Jesus as a First-Century Jewish Mystic Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2020-09-03 Simon J. Joseph
The categorical identification of the historical Jesus continues to be a central challenge in Jesus Research yet the identification of the historical Jesus as a first-century Jewish mystic has long been a popular topic among Western esotericists, Christian mystics, contemporary New Age authors, and some biblical scholars. Taking a critical look at the category and study of mysticism in Jesus Research
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Why Did Jesus Surrender to the Cross?: The Historical Evidence Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2020-09-03 John Mowbray
Evidence from secular sources shows that the Romans did not attempt to crucify all in the empire who rose against them; rather, they crucified leaders as a warning to others, but often let followers go. Jesus believed or hoped that if he surrendered to the cross, though the Romans would crucify him as leader, they would let his followers go. He surrendered himself accordingly, to save his followers
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Jesus the Samaritan: synthesizing Two Approaches to the Historical Jesus and their Conceptions on the Continuity between Jesus and the Gospels Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2020-08-29 Jonathan D. Wegner
This article documents how two approaches to the historical Jesus, the criteria of authenticity and the memory approach, generally produce divergent takes on the character of the (dis)continuity between Jesus and the Gospels. It highlights some of their respective strengths and weaknesses and attempts to synthesize their strengths through an analysis of the Good Samaritan. Alongside John P. Meier,
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Jesus ‘ben Pantera’: An Epigraphic and Military-Historical Note Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2020-04-30 Christopher B. Zeichmann
There is ample evidence that anti-Christian polemicists asserted that Jesus’ true father was neither God nor Joseph, but a Roman soldier named Pantera. This was long dismissed as ahistorical, but for the past century, some interlocutors have argued that there may be credibility to the polemic, with some going so far as to identify Pantera with a certain Tiberius Julius Abdes Pantera, a Roman archer
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The Quest for the Gist of Jesus: The Jesus Seminar, Dale Allison, and Improper Linear Models Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2020-04-30 Sean F. Everton, Daniel T. Cunningham
Studies have found that while experts can be quite good at identifying criteria related to a particular phenomenon, they are typically outperformed by improper linear models (ilm), which assign equal weights to criteria. In this article, using widely-accepted criteria for assessing the authenticity of the sayings of Jesus, we generate a new ranking of Jesus’ sayings using an ilm. Then, drawing on recent
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Socialscapes and Abstractions: An Appraisal of Richard A. Horsley’s Theorizing of Antiquity Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2020-04-30 Sarah E. Rollens
Richard A. Horsley’s work on Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity has been widely influential. In particular, his theorizing of the social world in which early Jews and Christians were embedded has significantly advanced biblical studies. This article engages with several of the most prominent analytical categories in his work (peasant, retainer, resistance, and renewal) with a view toward
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Crowds and Power in the Early Palestinian Tradition Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2020-04-30 Robert J. Myles
This article draws on critical crowd theory to explore how historical Jesus research can benefit from a more robust understanding of the crowds that engulf Jesus as subjects of historical change. Conventional approaches to the crowds within New Testament scholarship are complicit in heightening Jesus’ individual exceptionalism. Rather than envisaging the crowds as part of the anonymous background to
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The Chronology of John the Baptist and the Crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth: A New Approach Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2020-01-31 Tamás Visi
The consensus of present-day historians that Jesus was crucified around the year 30 ce has been challenged by a minority of scholars who argue that the execution of John the Baptist could not take place earlier than 35 ce, and for that reason Jesus must have been crucified at the Passover of 36 ce. This paper argues that both parties have strong and convincing arguments, and for that reason we must
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Jesus and the Food Laws Revisited Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2020-01-31 Sigurd Grindheim
This article challenges the emerging consensus that Jesus was a faithful Jew whose teaching could be understood within the bounds of first-century Jewish legal discussion. It is argued that Mark’s remark, that “Jesus declared all foods clean” (Mk 7:19b), adequately represents the originally intended meaning of an authentic saying regarding ethical and ceremonial purity (Mk 7:15, 18–19 par.). If so
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Luke’s Source Claims in the Context of Ancient Historiography Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2020-01-31 John J. Peters
Research on Luke-Acts and the Gospels has largely overlooked the major distinction within ancient historiography between accounts written about events contemporary with the author (e.g., by Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Polybius) and accounts written about non-contemporary events (e.g., by Diodorus, Dionysius, Plutarch, Arrian). As ancient authors writing about contemporary events represented their
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Samaritans, Galileans, and Judeans in Josephus and the Gospel of John Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2020-01-31 Reinhard Pummer
The paper seeks to shed light on the ministry and reception of Jesus of Nazareth as perceived through the lens of the Gospel of John in the light of Samaritan, Galilean, and Judean perspectives. Flavius Josephus and the Samaritan tradition help us to gain a better understanding of certain details expressed or alluded to in the gospels. In particular, on the basis of these two sources the paper puts
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Discerning What the Quest of the Historical Jesus Could Not See: Howard Thurman, Jesus and the Disinherited Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2019-10-25 Richard A. Horsley
In Jesus and the Disinherited Thurman recognized that the all-important historical context of Jesus was among a people subjugated, similar to that of segregated and colonized peoples. He discerned the cost in human degradation for people subjected by overwhelming power as they struggled with fear, deception, and hate. In the Gospels he discerned Jesus’ uniquely creative response: His assurance that
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Howard Thurman and the Religion of Jesus: Survival of the Disinherited and Womanist Wisdom Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2019-10-25 Mitzi J. Smith
This essay examines Howard Thurman’s interpretation of the historical Jesus and the religion of Jesus in his 1949 book Jesus and the Disinherited (jatd). Thurman interprets Jesus within his first century CE socio-historical context and from the perspective of disinherited African Americans. He articulates the significance of the religion of Jesus, versus religion about Jesus, for the disinherited and
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Howard Thurman’s Jesus: Recovering a Disinherited Identity Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2019-10-25 Emerson Powery
This essay contextualizes Thurman’s “Jesus” within academia and the larger Western milieu of the 1940–1950s. Thurman offered a usable construction in order to encourage people to eliminate their “fear” of the other, discourage their use of “deception” as a strategy of survival, and replace their “hate” with love for the other, as a means of maintaining their own human dignity for the purpose of thriving
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Howard Thurman: Spiritual Activist and Mystic of the Movement Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2019-10-25 Jemar Tisby
This short introduction to the life of Howard Thurman contextualizes his most celebrated book, Jesus and the Disinherited, with attention to the conditions of his childhood, social placement, career, and religious life.
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Jesus and the Disinherited and 1 Peter Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2019-10-25 Dennis R. Edwards
First Peter relies heavily upon the Jesus tradition found in the Gospels in order to motivate and encourage followers of Jesus who were being marginalized and harassed by the dominant society. Howard Thurman’s Jesus and the Disinherited does the same work as 1 Peter. The social condition of Thurman and his audience mirrors that of the addressees of 1 Peter. This essay compares Jesus and the Disinherited
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‘Low in the Well’: A Mystic’s Creative Message of Hope in Jesus and the Disinherited Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2019-10-25 Abraham Smith
2019 marks the 70th anniversary of Howard Thurman’s Jesus and the Disinherited (1949). Thurman’s classic was not a work of dogma nor a variation on the so-called “Quest for the Historical Jesus.” Instead, Thurman’s classic primarily offered a mystic’s message of hope to many marginalized persons in the first half of the twentieth century. In part, Jesus and the Disinherited reveals Jesus’s insight
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Thurman among Modern Jesus Scholars: Howard Thurman’s Jesus and the Disinherited in Conversation with Jens Schröter and Dale Allison Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2019-10-25 Esau McCaulley
Written in honor of the seventy-year anniversary of Howard Thurman’s Jesus and the Disinherited, this paper takes up Thurman’s plea that we should consider the relevance of historical Jesus studies to the oppressed. I heed his call by examining Thurman’s claims about Jesus’ life and ministry in light of the work of two contemporary Jesus scholars whose work on social history have moved the conversation
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The Chimeric “Empty Tomb” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2019-05-15 Bruce Chilton
Alan Segal rejected the claim that the “empty tomb” must be taken as the fulcrum of analysis for Jesus’ Resurrection. He characterized that argument as the project of “a small group of scholars made up entirely of the faithful trying to impose their faith in the form of an academic argument.” Although Segal’s criticism is too broadly articulated to be convincing, it identifies a weakness in recent
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Jesus the Pharisee: Leon Modena, the Historical Jesus, and Renaissance Venice Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2019-05-15 Cristiana Facchini
This article is devoted to Leon Modena’s anti-Christian polemical work Magen ve-herev (1643 ca.) as a useful source for the reconstruction of notions about the historical Jesus in the early modern period. In this work, Modena depicts Jesus in a sympathetic way, placing his religious activity against the backdrop of second Temple Judaism. Modena’s Jesus is fully Jewish, and Magen ve-herev offers different
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Schweitzer, Lagrange, and the German Roots of Historical Jesus Research Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2019-05-15 Anthony Giambrone
This study helps critically distance future scholarship from the rhetorical and religious agenda of Albert Schweitzer’s Quest of the Historical Jesus, with the corollary aim of problematizing the widespread ‘Three Quests’ heuristic, so dependent upon it. The pronounced ambitions and strongly marked German Protestant social location of Schweitzer’s project will be exposed by calling to witness a very
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Theses on the Nature of the Leben-Jesu-Forschung: A Proposal for a Paradigm Shift in Understanding the Quest Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus Pub Date : 2019-05-15 Fernando Bermejo-Rubio
Criticisms addressed to the historiographical paradigm of the so-called ‘three quests’ by several scholars with different ideological backgrounds and who have worked independently have debunked it by proving its untenable character. The present paper makes a proposal for a new paradigm which allows us to understand the quest of the historical Jesus in a more comprehensive, lucid and explanatory way