Bibliography
| Title: Research on the Historical Jesus Today: Jesus and the Pseudepigrapha, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Nag Hammadi Codices, Josephus, and Archaeology Secondary Title: PSB Volume: 6 Pages: 98-115 Type: Journal Article Year: 1985 Abstract: "Two questions are addressed to the OT Pseudepigrapha, the Dead Sea scrolls, the Nag Hammadi writings, Josephus' works, and modern archaeology: Are the data significant in our search for the Jesus of history? If so, why and in what important ways? Past research and present data tacitly contain a demand for renewed dedication to Jesus research, a request for unbiased interconfessional exploration of Jesus and his time, an appeal to be informed ( methodologically, textually, archaeologically), a call to enjoy the inclusiveness and preponderance of the interrogatives within the elusive probabilities of the historian's sphere, and a plea to realize that the historian and the theologian share complementary professions". - D.J.H.
"Because of the increased documentary evidence and the phenomenal archaeological discoveries Ch. Claims it to be necessary to organize an assessment of where NT scholarship stands today. According to the hermeneutical premise that historical research only provides us with relative probability he concludes that "the search for ipsissima verba Jesu evolved from a misperception of the circumscribed arena of probabilities, in which the historian works. Jesus' teaching was characterized by parables and the proclamation of God's rule (or the Kingdom of God). These two phenomena, and the Lord's Prayer itself, are deeply Jewish and paralleled abundantly in literature roughly contemporaneous with Jesus" (113). Charlesworth's survey of past research and present data implies "a demand for a renewed dedication to Jesus research, a request for an unbiased interconfessional exploration of Jesus and his time, an appeal to be informed methodologically, textually, and archaeologically, ... and a plea to realize that the historian and theologian share complimentary professions" (114)". Keywords: New Testament / Early Christianity |