Full Description
In recent years, a number of New Testament scholars engaged in academic historical Jesus studies have concluded that such scholarship cannot yield secure and illuminating conclusions about its subject, arguing that the search for a historically "authentic" Jesus has run aground.
Jesus, Skepticism, and the Problem of History brings together a stellar lineup of New Testament scholars who contend that historical Jesus scholarship is far from dead.
These scholars all find value in using the tools of contemporary historical methods in the study of Jesus and Christian origins. While the skeptical use of criteria to fashion a Jesus contrary to the one portrayed in the Gospels is methodologically unsound and theologically unacceptable, these criteria, properly formulated and applied, yield positive results that support the Gospel accounts and the historical narrative in Acts. This book presents a nuanced and vitally needed alternative to the skeptical extremes of revisionist Jesus scholarship that, on the one hand, uses historical methods to call into question the Jesus of the Gospels and, on the other, denies the possibility of using historical methods to learn about Jesus.
Contents
Introduction
N. T. Wright
Part One: The Value of New Testament Historical Studies
1. Does the Quest for the Historical Jesus Still Hold Any Promise?
Craig L. Blomberg
2. The Historical Jesus and the Biblical Church: Why the Quest Matters
Robert M. Bowman Jr. and J. Ed Komoszewski
Part Two: The Gospels and the Historical Jesus
3. New Testament Textual Criticism and Criteria of Authenticity in Historical Jesus Research
Daniel B. Wallace
4. Memory, Witness, and the Historical Jesus
Robert K. McIver
5. Oral Tradition and the Reliability of the Jesus Tradition
Paul R. Eddy
6. [Chapter on a key event in the life of Jesus: title TBD]
Beth Sheppard
7. The Historicity of the Gospel Miracles of Jesus
Craig S. Keener
8. The Task of Deriving "Historical Pharisees" from the Gospel of Matthew
Jeannine Brown
9. Jesus Remarks before the Sanhedrin: Blasphemy or Hope of Exaltation?
Darrell L. Bock
10. [Chapter on the Gospel of Mark: title TBD]
Elizabeth Shively
11. The Fourth Quest: John, Jesus, and History
Paul N. Anderson
12. Jesus' Burial: Archaeology, Authenticity, and History
Craig A. Evans and Greg Monette
13. Resurrection, Criteria, and the Demise of Postmodernism
Michael R. Licona
Part Three: The Book of Acts and Christian Origins
14. Social Memory in Acts
Michael F. Bird and Ben Sutton
15. External Validation of the Chronology in Acts
Ben Witherington III
Final Thoughts
Afterword: Two Responses
Larry W. Hurtado and Nicholas Perrin
Conclusion
Darrell L. Bock
