This essay is a general overview of synagogue life shaping the Jesus story. Runesson writes: These Jewish institutions, which were ubiquitous in the ancient Mediterranean world and, importantly, can be reconstructed based on sources both beyond and within the New Testament texts, thus provide us with a critical entry point into the world of Jesus, … (14) The Next Quest For The Historical Jesus: Synagogues by Anders Runesson

Rollens’ essay builds on the last one I talked about from Kloppenborg that examines the notion of the scribe in constructing the Jesus tradition.  She notes this argument only really pertains to the Q document, as the Gospels and Acts reflect a more sophisticated production. She writes: Regardless of where one falls on the question … (13) The Next Quest For The Historical Jesus: Scribal Galilee by Sarah Rollens

John Kloppenborg is one of the foremost experts on the “Q” source, the material common to Matthew and Luke that does not come from Mark. In this essay he tries to get beyond the notion of Jesus as the great genius to the idea that the gospel writings emerged out of substantial networks that had … (12) The Next Quest For The Historical Jesus: Networks by John Kloppenborg

The passage I would like to highlight in Whitlock’s essay is: Historical Jesus scholarship must value multiple pieces without synthesis. We are not obligated to provide a complete, unified picture of Jesus. Mitzi Smith and Yung Suk Kim in Toward Decentering the New Testament, for example, thoughtfully discuss “The Danger of a Single Story” when … (11) The Next Quest For The Historical Jesus: Fame and Aura by Matthew G. Whitlock

This chapter was an occasion for me to reflect on Chartism and unjust death. Crossley notes for the Chartist interpretation of Jesus: Jesus’s death was regularly understood as an example of the unjust end that always awaits the benevolent reformer, though this Jesus did not always passively accept his fate. From our point of view, … (10) The Next Quest For The Historical Jesus: Chartism and the Forgotten Quests by James Crossley

A couple of passages stood out to me in this essay. Firstly, characterizing Augustine’s thoughts on time: In that latter masterwork, time emerged as the great divide between humans—intrinsically time-bound and, thus, caught up in confounding problems of interpretation, be it of experience, of language, or of biblical texts—and the timeless god for whom the … (9) The Next Quest For The Historical Jesus: The Late Latin Quest by Paula Fredriksen

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Religious dispositions are not so much viewed as one’s subjective set of beliefs for the faithful but rather the way they experience the world, like how the world might appear/present itself to a schizophrenic in a conspiracy saturated way.  The religious details seem woven into the fabric of reality itself for the believer. Young writes: … (8) The Next Quest For The Historical Jesus: Myth and Mythmaking by Stephen Young

One of the great underreported sins of New Testament scholarship is the problem that, unless we’re told by the writers, there is no way to tell whether specific interpretive units like the lord’s supper or the empty tomb have their origins as historical memory, lie, rumors, dreams, visions, hearsay, etc. We know in the case … (7) The Next Quest For The Historical Jesus: RELIGION, VISIONS, AND ALTERNATIVE HISTORICITY by Deane Galbraith