Jesus, Criteria, and the Demise of Authenticity
Overview
Criteria of authenticity has held a prominent place in scholarly research regarding the historical Jesus. Its roots go back to before the pioneering work of Albert Schweitzer and have become a unifying feature of the third quest for the historical Jesus. However, scholars from different methodological frameworks have expressed growing discontent with this approach to the historical Jesus. In this book the findings of this new debate have been compiled in a cohesive way aimed directly at making the coalface of historical Jesus research accessible to undergraduates and seminary students. The book’s larger ramifications as a thorough end to the third quest will provide a pressure valve for thousands of scholars who view historical Jesus studies as outmoded and misguided. This book demands to be consulted by any scholar who discards, adopts, or adapts historical criteria.
In the Logos edition, this volume is enhanced by amazing functionality. Important terms link to dictionaries, encyclopedias, and a wealth of other resources in your digital library. Perform powerful searches to find exactly what you’re looking for. Take the discussion with you using tablet and mobile apps. With Logos Bible Software, the most efficient and comprehensive research tools are in one place, so you get the most out of your study.
Save more when you purchase this book as part of the T&T Clark Jesus Studies Collection.
- Exposes undergraduates and seminary students to the historical Jesus debate
- Presents fresh perspectives on the historical Jesus
- Explores the knowledge and humanity of Jesus
Top Highlights
“Le Donne, has deepened the connection between memory and history by showing that memory involves refraction, typology, and interpretation, so that an interpretive element is ineradicable from the memory.30 What we remember is a filter of what impressions were made on us, and that filter is an interpretation. That means the Gospel memories are interpretations of Jesus. We are thrust back into the corner that the memory of Jesus is an interpreted story of Jesus.” (Page 184)
“Dissimilarity presupposes that we have an extensive knowledge of Second Temple Judaism; and we may be tempted to believe, given how much progress the field has made over the last few decades, that we in fact have such knowledge. But, I decided, we do not. Even less can we consider ourselves very well informed about Jesus’ specifically Galilean world. How many of the old Jewish books that have come down to us were written in Galilee during Jesus’ lifetime? When I asked myself this question, I thought the Testament of Moses a possibility, but only a possibility; and, beyond that, I came up empty. How then could I continue appealing to the criterion of dissimilarity? I had avoided the obvious answer for so long because I did not know how else the quest is to be conducted.” (Page 188)
“To say it one more time: the historical Jesus reconstructed in the historical Jesus enterprise by historical Jesus scholars is someone less, someone else, and therefore not the same Jesus. As such, he is of no use to the church. Furthermore, I contend that it is this Jesus, this orthodox Jesus, who created the church and out of whom the church tells its one and only story so that if one were to change Jesuses one would have to enter a different story with a different beginning.” (Page 176)
[Keith and Le Donne] make a singular contribution by calling for a renewal of how Biblical scholarship approaches the quest for the historical Jesus.
—Donald Senior, author of the Catholic Study Bible and co-author of Sacra Pagina: 1 Peter, Jude, 2 Peter
- Title: Jesus, Criteria, and the Demise of Authenticity
- Authors: Chris Keith, Anthony Le Donne
- Publisher: T&T Clark
- Print Publication Date: 2012
- Logos Release Date: 2014
- Pages: 256
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: Jesus Christ › Historicity--Congresses; Religion › Christian theology--Christology
- ISBNs: 9780567062512, 0567062511
- Resource ID: LLS:JSCRDMAUTH
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-30T00:56:58Z
Chris Keith is a professor of New Testament and early Christianity, and director of the Center for the Social-Scientific Study of the Bible at St Mary’s University College in the United Kingdom. He is the author of Jesus’ Literacy: Scribal Culture and the Teacher from Galilee, The Pericope Adulterae, The Gospel of John, and a co-editor of Jesus Among Friends and Enemies: A Historical and Literary Introduction to Jesus in the Gospels. Keith was the winner of the 2010 John Templeton Award for Theological Promise, and in 2012 he was named a Society of Biblical Literature Regional Scholar.
Anthony Le Donne is an assistant professor of New Testament and Second Temple Judaism at Lincoln Christian University in Lincoln, Illinois. He is the author of The Fourth Gospel in First-Century Media Culture, The Historiographical Jesus: Memory, Typology, and the Son of David and Historical Jesus: What Can We Known and How Can We Know It?.