Historical Jesus

I am looking for books concerning the historical Jesus, scientifical studies on the historical origins of Jesus Christ. All tips welcome.

Hi Coessens... well, there a lots of web pages, books, and articles concerning that topic. However, as I know you'd like precise information from a reliable source regarding your question, I might suggest this one. I've read it many times, and have found it's one of the best articles over in the web. There are hundreds of books on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc. in on line bookstores about this topic as well, from which you might pick up the edition you find more interesting. I'll list just some of the most useful ones I've found:

1. Will Durant, Caesar and Christ, vol. 3 of The Story of Civilization.
2. D. James Kennedy, Skeptics Answered (this one deals with many scientific data about Jesus, His crucifixion, etc.)
3. Norman Geisler and Peter Bocchino, Unshakable Foundations.

I've even written an article by myself, but it's in Spanish, so if you would like to give it a try, you might take a look here. Any other question, whether you'd like to discuss here or not, I would be glad to help you out in this magnificent quest.

The LT tag page has a good survey of some of the books:
http://www.librarything.com/tag/Historical+Jesus

I strongly recommend John P. Meier's A marginal Jew. It's the most rigorously argued and, I think, fair minded.

I counter-recommend John Dominic Crossan. I think he has an axe to grind. I recently read his God and Empire: Jesus Against Rome, Then and Now and I think that's clearer than ever. That aside, he doesn't argue as deeply. Like a number of authors he's caught up in elevating the historicity of various late gospels that just don't deserve it.

Sander's The historical figure of Jesus is I think the most intellectually interesting. But it's provisional and unbalanced--not the first thing to read.

I second the Marginal Jew recommendation. I also liked The real Jesus by Timothy Johnson. One of the most famous is Albert Schweitzer's The quest of the historical Jesus but I haven't read that one.

Edited to try and fix touchstone

> 1

So you are interested in the historical jesus? Well, you couldn't do better than reading several of the books by Bart Ehrman. He is a world famous authority on the bible, plus he is the far more objective on the subject than most authors who have written books on jesus. Here are a few books with which you could start:

Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium

http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Apocalyptic-Prophet-New-Millennium/dp/019512474X/ref...

Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why

http://www.amazon.com/Misquoting-Jesus-Story-Behind-Changed/dp/0060859512/ref=sr...

Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don't Know About Them)

http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Interrupted-Revealing-Hidden-Contradictions/dp/00611...

The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings

http://www.amazon.com/New-Testament-Historical-Introduction-Christian/dp/0199740...

Forged: Writing in the Name of God--Why the Bible's Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are

http://www.amazon.com/Forged-Writing-God--Why-Bibles-Authors/dp/0062012614/ref=s...

Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew

http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Christianities-Battles-Scripture-Faiths/dp/0195182499...

The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament

http://www.amazon.com/Orthodox-Corruption-Scripture-Christological-Controversies...

Thank you all, this gives me from the start a lot of reading and information.
I will have a closer look and hope to be abele to come back with more questions and remarks.

Another Great book to read is Why I Believe by D. James Kennedy.

You might also want to glance at Jesus Before Christianity by Albert Nolan

Ehman is a scholar and worth your time.

I think, however, he has become increasingly partisan and decreasingly scholarly. Mainstream Biblical criticism finds much lacking in his Misquoting Jesus, and whether he's right or wrong, it's not really a scholarly account, but a popularizing version his 1996 The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture. His recent delve into popular accounts is matched by a delve into arguing against Christianity itself--God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question-Why We Suffer. Such argument is fine, but isn't relevant to the Historical Jesus and it makes you wonder whether his scholarship is colored by an anti-religious agenda. (Such objections also apply to N. T. Wright, whose got a foot in both HJ scholarship and apologetics.)

You might also avoid recommending Forged. It hasn't been published yet.

While not a heavy duty scholar book, you have a good many here. The Shadow of the Galilean: The Quest of the Historical Jesus in Narrative Form is a good read worth your time. It's one of the books we had to read in intro to NT at seminary.

> 7

James Kennedy was pretty much a reactionary ignoramus goofball of the Jerry Falwell variety. I think he would the last go-to guy for information on any serious issue, least of all what Jesus was all about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._James_Kennedy

Thanks for that. Anyone looking for "scientifical studies on the historical origins of Jesus Christ" should certainly steer away from any book written by a Young Earth Creationist.

I dunno. I think anyone looking for "Scientifical" studies would do very well to look for works by a Young Earth Creationist.

That's naughty: the original poster is not a native English speaker.

I haven't read it, but I'm wondering whether Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration by Joseph Ratzinger would be useful. It has recently been recommended to me, and glancing at the reviews on LT I may even read it.

Do we construct our myths or do our myths construct us? Is that an either/or question?

To me, it seems to be so patently clearly not an either/or question that I'm wondering why you asked it, even as a rhetorical device.

>18 ajdeus: ajdeus, it might have been good to mention that this is your own book that you are recommending.

I just purchased this book for fifty cents at a library sale. It received overwhelmingly good reviews from the customers. I'll get to it in a couple of months and see if I wasted my money. LOL.

http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Difficult-Words-Jesus-Perspective/dp/1560435...

Johnthefireman: I agree and apologize.

Wait, I have to read them in an arbitrary order—invented by you?!—an arbitrary and dated translation, and leave out St. Luke to boot? What a queer mix!

Does it even interest you that the point of the topic isn't doctrine at all, still less "faults" doctrine?

And what's with all the book promotion? Never mind, I feel a tangent coming on this thread. I'll resist it. With luck, we can stay on track.

#22 Why would it be necessary to read the King James version? It's Elizabethan English and words don't mean the same which is why there are so many good versions available. If you really want to read the originals, you need to learn Biblical Greek and some other languages also. King James is for the beauty of the language. The modern translations work better for understanding the meaning of the writings.

Edited for typo

I am sorry if my initial question sparks this kind of argument. If it does i would like to close the discussion. Ii am, as a historian, interested in the historical (or not) figure of Jesus. Nothing more. Somewhere around post 11/12 the information went of track.

>24 fdholt:

We've discussed this on other threads. The KJV-only position is strange, I agree, but I don't think anyone is going to convince anyone.

>25 Coessens:

No, let's try to keep it on track. Generally speaking, it's hard to have the discussion as one of ancient history without the radical atheists coming in to declare that's impossible and the religiously assertive declaring it's impious. It's best to ignore them and just go on talking about history.

25
If you are interested in what may be characterized as a fringe argument, you might look for Caesar's Messiah. I leafed through this one at the library the other day. It purports to show that Jesus was a Roman invention, taking as evidence, I believe, passages from Josephus. I haven't read the book, but I can't say that I would be able to endorse this argument.

It might at least provide a good example of how not to do history.

There's a lot of such titles, imagining the New Testament was dreamed up by some droll Roman trickster, who somehow also got a bunch of slobs to believe him. Usually self-published by people with no plausible claim to expertise, and certainly never peer reviewed, it's all as far outside professional work on the topic as any Young Earth Creationist tract, and, of course, motivated by the same desire to have an answer of a certain sort, no matter how absurd the arguments.

Jesus & the Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls by B.E. Thiering grabbed my imagination for at least a year's worth of Masses. An Australian academic, the author was voting member of the Jesus Seminar. This 1993 book, which interprets NT based on Dead Sea Scrolls and on archeological evidence at Qumran (sp?)--what MIGHT have happened--was extremely controversial. I found it most convincing for Jesus's early years (John the Baptist, etc.), least for Resurrection. I've read it a couple times now. (Caveat: I am the most pedestrian of laymen!)

29 contd.

Skeletons could provide clues to who wrote or protected the Dead Sea Scrolls
Bruce Bower | November 17, 2017

Few women or children have been found at Qumran burial site, suggesting similarities to Byzantine monastery cemeteries

...the interred bodies are around 2,200 years old — close to the same age as the ancient texts, which are estimated to have been written between around 150 B.C. and A.D. 70.

...Qumran individuals show no signs of war-related injuries and are not predominantly young adult men, as would be expected of a cemetery for soldiers, (Anthropologist Yossi Nagar of the Israel Antiquities Authority in Jerusalem) said. The Qumran skeletons can’t be confirmed as Essenes, but their identity as part of a community of celibate men appears probable....

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/skeletons-could-provide-clues-who-wrote-or-p...

Citations

Y. Nagar et al. The people of Qumran — new discoveries and paleodemographic interpretations. American Schools of Oriental Research annual meeting, Boston, November 16, 2017. http://www.asor.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/ASOR-Program-2017-online.pdf

Further Reading

B. Bower. Digital rehab exposes Biblical roots of ancient Israeli scroll. Science News Online, September 21, 2016. https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/science-ticker/digital-rehab-exposes-biblical-r...

B. Bower. Return of the kings. Science News. Vol. 174, November 22, 2008, p. 10. https://www.sciencenews.org/article/return-kings