Table of Contents:
Introduction N. T. Wright Part One: The Value of New Testament Historical Studies 1. Does the Quest for the Historical Jesus Still Hold Any Promise? Craig L. Blomberg 2. The Historical Jesus and the Biblical Church: Why the Quest Matters Robert M. Bowman Jr. and J. Ed Komoszewski Part Two: The Gospels and the Historical Jesus 3. New Testament Textual Criticism and Criteria of Authenticity in Historical Jesus Research Daniel B. Wallace 4. Memory, Witness, and the Historical Jesus Robert K. McIver 5. Oral Tradition and the Reliability of the Jesus Tradition Paul R. Eddy 6. [Chapter on a key event in the life of Jesus: title TBD] Beth Sheppard 7. The Historicity of the Gospel Miracles of Jesus Craig S. Keener 8. The Task of Deriving "Historical Pharisees" from the Gospel of Matthew Jeannine Brown 9. Jesus Remarks before the Sanhedrin: Blasphemy or Hope of Exaltation? Darrell L. Bock 10. [Chapter on the Gospel of Mark: title TBD] Elizabeth Shively 11. The Fourth Quest: John, Jesus, and History Paul N. Anderson 12. Jesus' Burial: Archaeology, Authenticity, and History Craig A. Evans and Greg Monette 13. Resurrection, Criteria, and the Demise of Postmodernism Michael R. Licona Part Three: The Book of Acts and Christian Origins 14. Social Memory in Acts Michael F. Bird and Ben Sutton 15. External Validation of the Chronology in Acts Ben Witherington III Final Thoughts Afterword: Two Responses Larry W. Hurtado and Nicholas Perrin Conclusion Darrell L. Bock
Publisher Marketing:In recent years, a number of New Testament scholars engaged in academic historical Jesus studies have concluded that such scholarship cannot yield secure and illuminating conclusions about its subject, arguing that the search for a historically "authentic" Jesus has run aground.
Jesus, Skepticism, and the Problem of History brings together a stellar lineup of New Testament scholars who contend that historical Jesus scholarship is far from dead.
These scholars all find value in using the tools of contemporary historical methods in the study of Jesus and Christian origins. While the skeptical use of criteria to fashion a Jesus contrary to the one portrayed in the Gospels is methodologically unsound and theologically unacceptable, these criteria, properly formulated and applied, yield positive results that support the Gospel accounts and the historical narrative in Acts. This book presents a nuanced and vitally needed alternative to the skeptical extremes of revisionist Jesus scholarship that, on the one hand, uses historical methods to call into question the Jesus of the Gospels and, on the other, denies the possibility of using historical methods to learn about Jesus.
