Over the last few days, these two debates on the historicity of Jesus have popped up: I just watched Richard Carrier’s friend Godless Engineer interview Jacob Berman on the Christ Myth theory.  I liked it very much and Berman said he thought some of the best evidence for the historical Jesus is 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16 where … Recent Online Debates on The Christ Myth Theory

(2) The Next Quest For The Historical Jesus: Reception History by Halvor Moxnes (3) The Next Quest For The Historical Jesus: Beyond The Jewish Jesus Debate by Adele Reinhartz (4) The Next Quest For The Historical Jesus: Biography by Helen K. Bond (5) The Next Quest For The Historical Jesus: Beyond What is Behind by Chris … Complete Index Blogging The Next Quest For The Historical Jesus Anthology Of Essays

As is clear from the genealogies of Jesus, both of which belong to Joseph, Jesus is adopted into Joseph’s bloodline (since he isn’t Jesus’ biological father), just as the new believer is adopted into the family of God through Jesus who Paul calls the first born of many brethren. Jesus’ death is a literary pair … (24) The Next Quest For The Historical Jesus: Violence and Trauma by Nathan Shedd

APOCALYPTICISM AND MILLENARIANISM reflect the idea that the end of the age is at hand and would be followed by a judgment. This was the type of thing Jesus and John the Baptist were preaching. The world in which Jesus grew up that gave birth to this worldview was a time of anxiety and instability. … (23) The Next Quest For The Historical Jesus: APOCALYPTICISM AND MILLENARIANISM by James Crossley

As I note in my essay A Critique of the Penal Substitution Interpretation of the Cross of Christ , an extremely important aspect of the resurrection is that Christ as a spirit, Christ in you, could now possess the believer in a positive way as booster, the resister of Satan par excellence and greatly aid … (22) The Next Quest For The Historical Jesus: Spirit World by Giovanni B. Bazzana

In previous posts I noted how in Mark we have the satire of how the crafty Jewish leaders were manipulating scripture and tradition to invent a case against Jesus. Matthew shows something similar in one of Satan’s temptations of Jesus misusing scripture. In a later addition to the gospel of John, we see this same … (21) The Next Quest For The Historical Jesus: Sexuality by Amy-Jill Levine

I’m a little out of order today, Barber’s essay being near the end of the book, but there were some things that are worth addressing now so here we go! Jesus predicting his passion and resurrection is multiply attested to throughout scripture.  However, as Ehrman points out these run contrary to the fact that Mark, … (20) The Next Quest For The Historical Jesus: Death and Martyrdom by Michael Barber

Did Jerusalem reflect the final destination for Jesus’ ministry.  Ferda marshals a number of points in the affirmative: And why did Jesus go up to Jerusalem? Ferda offers some possibilities: Responding to Ferda, I would say the popular interpretation of Jesus’ death which assumes a pagan understanding of a payment to assuage the wrath of … (19) The Next Quest For The Historical Jesus: Galilee and Jerusalem by Tucker Ferda

One of the key points in Walsh’s chapter is the presence of wonder (thaumazein) and how that connects Mark’s book to earlier literary models.  For example, she writes: Thus, in the Gospel of Mark we see an even more pronounced engagement with thauma-writing as Jesus elicits the same reactions from eyewitnesses in the text as … (18) The Next Quest For The Historical Jesus: City and Country by Robyn Faith Walsh

In Matthew we read: 25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow … (17) The Next Quest For The Historical Jesus: Textiles, Sustenance, and Economy by Janelle Peters