25 Geza Vermes, Jesus the Jew: A Historian’s Reading of the Gospels(New York: Macmillan, 1973); cf. Geza Vermes, The Religion of Jesus the Jew(Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993).
26 Ben F. Meyer, The Aims of Jesus(London: SCM, 1979).
27 E.P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism(Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985).
nonviolent social dissent.^28 Other important volumes add to the emphasis on Jesus and the Jewish background of his thought.^29
A notable exception to this fairly positive trend is the position taken by the Fellows of the Jesus Seminar. While agreeing with the need to research the historical Jesus, these scholars follow more in the tradition of Strauss and Bultmann, and favor a return to a mythical approach to the Gospels.^30
Summary and Conclusion
It would appear that, for at least the last two hundred years, there has usually been a keen interest in studying the life of Jesus. Although there have also been times (such as a few decades earlier this century) when this interest has waned among scholars, it seems to reassert itself periodically.
It is within such a contemporary context, then, that studies in the life of Jesus proceed. And like so many other areas, there are those scholars who will defend the biblical accounts, those who will deny their authority, and those who line up somewhere in between.
But not all interpretations of Jesus’ life attempt to pay strict attention to historical detail. Some, like the fictitious lives earlier in this chapter, have admittedly set out to construct rather imaginary portrayals of his time on the earth. But in spite of the fact that scholars deny the validity of such efforts, they have arguably played an influential role in the popular understanding of Christianity. In the last few decades, many popular lives of Jesus have appeared, and are quite similar in many respects to the fictitious works of about 150 years ago. We will discuss several in subsequent chapters.
Perhaps surprisingly to some, there is still a conclusion to be gained from all of this variety. As in so many other matters, the question is not how many scholars hold such-and-such a view, or what trends have dominated intellectual thought, or even how surveys tell us the majority of people think.
The real issue is what the data tell us about the Jesus of history. What sources do we have at our disposal? Is there any material from non-Christians? When did Jesus live? What did he do? What did he teach? How did he die? Is there any truth to the New Testament contention that Jesus was raised from the dead? It is our purpose to pursue the answers to many of these questions both by addressing critical challenges and by ascertaining what sources support a traditional understanding of Jesus.
28 Richard Horsley, Jesus and the Spiral of Violence: Popular Jewish Resistance in Roman Palestine(San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1987).
29 Examples include James H. Charlesworth, Jesus Within Judaism(Garden City: Doubleday, 1988); John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Vol. 1 (Garden City: Doubleday, 1991) and Mentor, Message, Miracle, Vol. 2 (Garden City: Doubleday, 1994).
30 Some representative volumes include the following: Robert W. Funk, Roy W. Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels: The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus (New York: Macmillan, 1993); John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant(San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1991); John Dominic Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography(San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1994); Marcus J. Borg, Jesus: A New Vision: Spirit, Culture, and the Life of Discipleship(San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1987). A volume that exhibits some similarities is Burton L. Mack, The Lost Gospel: The Book of Q and Christian Origins(San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993).
