Short essay

This week, you’ll read (at least) one interpretation of Jesus by a professional historian. As you read and respond to your chosen historian, notice how he does a large-scale interpretation. Each one focuses on the larger idea of who Jesus was and what his mission was about, as opposed to just creating a chronicle of Jesus’s life. Like my sample essay on James, these essays use the evidence from the sources and the individual events as evidence for the larger interpretation.

Do the following:

Choose a single historian’s work to read and then read it. (You’re of course welcome to read two or all three)
Choice 1: The Radical Egalitarian
Attached Files:
crossan_historical_jesus.pdf (3.304 MB)

John Dominic Crossan is one of the most popular and prominent interpreters of Jesus. He is a former Catholic priest and an historian of Jesus and the early Christian movement. He uses, as you’ve seen, insights from anthropology to illuminte the historical context. He is now a retired Professor Emeritus of religious studies at DePaul University in Chicago.

Note that this is a somewhat difficult text, but it provides the most contrast with the other two by arguing against the historical Jesus being an apocalyptic prophet. You might also choose to read it if you’re particularly interested in John the Baptist or the Gospel of Thomas.

The Texts
“From Jesus to Christ” (Included in the file, but not required reading.)
“John and Jesus” (This is the required part.)

Choice 2: The Apocalyptic Prophet

Attached Files:

ehrman_apocalyptic_prophet.pdf (1.767 MB)

Bart Ehrman is probably the most read English-language scholar of the historical Jesus. He is a former fundamentalist Protestant Christian whose graduate school studies shook his literal reading of the Bible. The problem of suffering in the world later lead him to atheism. He uses “textual criticism” of Armamic, Greek, and Hebrew scriptures and other religious writings to study the historical Jesus and the early Christian movement. He is a professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.

This article is easy to read. It provides the dominant view of historians. You might also find it interesting for showing some important differences between Jesus’s teachings and the early movement on the one hand and later and even modern Christianity.

The Text
“Jesus, the Apocalyptic Prophet”

Choice 3: The Risen World Messiah
Attached Files:
bock_evangelical_view_2009.pdf (23.134 MB)

Darrell Bock is perhaps the most prominent evangelical interpreter of the historical Jesus and defender of orthodox views of the origins and historical value of the canonical gospels. He is a professor of New Testament Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary in Dallas, Texas. He specializes in New Testament theology, the Jewish context of the Jesus movement, and the historical Jesus.

This is an easy-to-read, straight-forward text the explicitly uses the criteria of authenticity that we’ve been using in class.

The Text
“The Historical Jesus: An Evangelical View”