Most experts who seek to understand the historical Jesus focus only on the Synoptic Gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke. However, the contributors of this volume come to an important consensus: that the Gospel of John preserves traditions that are independent of the Synoptics, and which are often as reliable as any known traditions for understanding the historical Jesus. As such, the contributors argue for the use of John's Gospel in Jesus research. The volume contains various critical approaches to historical inquiry in the Gospel of John, including new evaluations of the relationship between John and the Synoptics, literary and rhetorical approaches, comparative analysis of other early traditions, the judicious use of archaeological data, and historical interpretation of John's theological tendencies. Contributing scholars include Dale C. Allison, Jr., Paul N. Anderson, Harold W. Attridge, James H. Charlesworth, R. Alan Culpepper, Michael A. Daise, Craig S. Keener, George L. Parsenios, Petr Pokorny, Jan Roskovec, and Urban C. von Wahlde, who help to reassess fully the historical study of John's gospel, particularly with respect to the person of Jesus.

God Visible: Patristic Christology Reconsidered considers the early development and reception of what is today the most widely professed Christian conception of Christ. The development of this doctrine admits of wide variations in expression, understanding, and interpretation that are as striking in authors of the first millennium as they are among modern writers. The seven early ecumenical councils and their dogmatic formulations were crucial facilitators in defining the shape of this study. Focusing primarily on the declaration of the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451, Brian E. Daley argues that previous assessments that Christ was one Person in two natures - the Divine of the same substance as the Father and the human of the same substance as us - can sometimes be excessively narrow, even distorting our understanding of Christ's person. Daley urges us to look beyond the Chalcedonian formula alone, and to consider what some major Church Fathers - from Irenaeus to John Damascene - say about the person of Christ.

Jesus is not white. Jesus is not American. Jesus does not want to make America great. While many of us grew up looking at gleaming portraits of Jesus with blond, flowing hair and hearing sermons reaffirming that we have the answers to save a fallen world, the real Jesusa Middle Eastern Jew preaching radical, humble, self-emptying lovecalls us to a different life. As we see oppression and hate run rampant in our nation, it's as if Christianity has lost sight of the red letters altogether. Sheri Faye Rosendahl takes a look at important social issues in our society, the responses of American Christians, and the true ways behind the red letters. Not Your White Jesus addresses the need to reexamine the true ways of Jesus that we find clearly in the red letters, enabling readers to discover what it truly means to follow the ways of Jesus in contrast to following the ways of the American Christian elite.

Was Christ's human nature fallen, even sinful? From the 18th century to the present, this view has become increasingly prominent in Reformed theological circles and beyond, despite vigorous opposition. Both sides on the issue see it as vital for understanding the nature of salvation. Each side's advocates appeal to or critique the Church Fathers. This book reviews the history and present state of the debate, then surveys the connections, distinctions, and patristic interpretations of five of the modern fallenness view's proponents (Edward Irving, Karl Barth, T. F. Torrance, Colin Gunton, and Thomas Weinandy) and five of its opponents (Marcus Dods the Elder, A. B. Bruce, H. R. Mackintosh, Philip Hughes, and Donald Macleod). The book verifies the views of the ten most-cited Fathers: five Greek (Irenaeus, Athanasius, Gregory Nazianzen, Gregory Nyssen, and Cyril of Alexandria) and five Latin (Tertullian, Hilary of Poitiers, Ambrose, Augustine, and Leo the Great). The study concludes by sketching the implications of its findings for the doctrines of the Immaculate Conception, sin, sanctification, and Scripture.

The four Gospels unanimously present Jesus as someone who quoted from, commented on, and engaged with the Scriptures of Israel. Whether this portrayal goes back to the historical Jesus has been a hotly debated issue among scholars. In this book, eleven expert researchers from four different continents tackle the question anew. This is done through detailed study of specific themes and passages from the Scriptures which Jesus, according to the Gospels, quoted or alluded to. Among the various topics investigated are Jesus' use of Genesis 2 to bolster his teaching on divorce, his reference to the Queen of Sheba story in 1 Kings, the significance of the Book of Zechariah for Jesus' self-understanding, and his enigmatic quotation of Psalm 22 on the cross. These and other contributions result in a common understanding of Jesus' use of the Scriptures. Not only did Jesus engage with the Scriptures, according to these scholars, but his mode of engagement has to be placed within the early Jewish interpretative framework within which he lived.

In order to demonstrate how the crucifixion narrative emerged and changed over time, this historical primer on the death of Jesus includes an overview of the evidence that Jesus existed and was crucified, explanations of how crucifixion worked and why it was employed by the Romans, and descriptions of Jesus' death in early Christian literature in a logical progression from the earliest to latest.

Sosa Siliezar investigates the presence and significance of creation imagery in the Gospel of John. He argues that John has intentionally included only a limited (albeit significant) number of instances of creation imagery and that he has positioned them carefully to highlight their significance. Sosa Siliezar contends that the instances of creation imagery used in varying contexts function collectively in a threefold way that is consonant with John's overall argument. First, John uses them to portray Jesus in close relationship with his Father, existing apart from and prior to the created order. Second, John uses creation imagery to assert the primal and universal significance of Jesus and the message about him, and to privilege him over other important figures in the story of Israel. Third, John uses creation imagery to link past reality with present and future reality, portraying Jesus as the agent of creation whom the reader should regard as the primal agent of revelation and salvation. The book concludes by underscoring how these findings inform our understanding of John's Christology and Johannine dualism.

For two centuries scholars have sought to discover the historical Jesus. Presently such scholarship is dominated not by the question 'Who was Jesus?' but rather 'How do we even go about answering the question, "Who was Jesus?"?' With this current situation in mind, Jonathan Bernier undertakes a two-fold task: one, to engage on the level of the philosophy of history with existing approaches to the study of the historical Jesus, most notably the criteria approach and the social memory approach; two, to work with the critical realism developed by Bernard Lonergan, introduced into New Testament studies by Ben F. Meyer, and advocated by N.T. Wright in order to develop a philosophy of history that can elucidate current debates within historical Jesus studies.

This multidisciplinary treatment of the doctrine of Christ's deity combines evangelical scholarship with substantial and accessible theological content. Volume 3 in the noted Theology in Community series.

The Oxford Handbook of Christology brings together 40 authoritative essays considering the theological study of the nature and role of Jesus Christ. This collection offers dynamic perspectives within the study of Christology and provides rigorous discussion of inter-confessional theology, which would not have been possible even 60 years ago. The first of the seven parts considers Jesus Christ in the Bible. Rather than focusing solely on the New Testament, this section begins with discussion of the modes of God's self-communication to us and suggests that Christ's most original incarnation is in the language of the Hebrew Bible. The second section considers Patristics Christology. These essays explore the formation of the doctrines of the person of Christ and the atonement between the First Council of Nicaea in 325 and the eve of the Second Council of Nicaea. The next section looks at Mediaeval theology and tackles the development of the understanding of who Christ was and of his atoning work. The section on 'Reformation and Christology' traces the path of the Reformation from Luther to Bultmann. The fifth section tackles the new developments in thinking about Christ which have emerged in the modern and the postmodern eras, and the sixth section explains how beliefs about Jesus have affected music, poetry, and the arts. The final part concludes by locating Christology within systematic theology, asking how it relates to Christian belief as a whole. This comprehensive volume provides an invaluable resource and reference for scholars, students, and general readers interested in the study of Christology.

This in-depth discussion of New Testament scholarship and the challenges of history as a whole proposes Bayes's Theorem, which deals with probabilities under conditions of uncertainty, as a solution to the problem of establishing reliable historical criteria. The author demonstrates that valid historical methods--not only in the study of Christian origins but in any historical study--can be described by, and reduced to, the logic of Bayes's Theorem. Conversely, he argues that any method that cannot be reduced to this theorem is invalid and should be abandoned.
Writing with thoroughness and clarity, the author explains Bayes's Theorem in terms that are easily understandable to professional historians and laypeople alike, employing nothing more than well-known primary school math. He then explores precisely how the theorem can be applied to history and addresses numerous challenges to and criticisms of its use in testing or justifying the conclusions that historians make about the important persons and events of the past. The traditional and established methods of historians are analyzed using the theorem, as well as all the major "historicity criteria" employed in the latest quest to establish the historicity of Jesus. The author demonstrates not only the deficiencies of these approaches but also ways to rehabilitate them using Bayes's Theorem.
Anyone with an interest in historical methods, how historical knowledge can be justified, new applications of Bayes's Theorem, or the study of the historical Jesus will find this book to be essential reading.

Resurrection reconsidered revisits the vexed question arguably at the very heart of the Christian faith: What is the nature of the resurrection? The first part of this stimulating collection of essays, drawn from an international team of writers, examines the resurrection itself and reflects the many different positions within contemporary Christian thought, ranging from a defence of the resurrection as a literal historical event, through to an outright rejection of the resurrection, and a feminist- psychoanalytic critique. The book then explores the resurrection within an equally controversial arena: Christianity and other religions- pushing the debate into a broader, interreligious context. For scholars, students, clergy and all those concerned with Christianity in the modern world, Resurrection Reconsidered offers an exciting foretaste of the type of debate that will mark a pluralist twenty-first century.

RELIGION / CHRISTIAN STUDIESThe familiar story of Judas, betrayer of Jesus, is striking because of its incomprehensibility. Why would one of Christ's disciples and companions of the heart deliver him up to his enemies and a barbarous, ignominious, and certain death for thirty pieces of silver? Jean-Yves Leloup's careful investigation of the gospels, various apocryphal texts, and most importantly the Coptic codex known as the Gospel of Judas leads him to conclude that there is more to the familiar story of Judas than a simple demonstration, viewed through one man, of humanity's inherent failings.In this reconstruction, based on these classic texts, Leloup offers an alternative explanation for Judas's actions, complete with illustrative dialogue. The betrayal of Jesus to the Romans was Jesus's idea, explains Leloup. Jesus persuaded Judas to play the role of "evil" in humankind by telling him that this enactment was crucial to God's plan and would set Judas by Jesus's side in eternity: "There where I am," spoke Jesus to Judas, "is where I wish you, too, to be."But to get there, Judas--a metaphorical representation of the darker side present in all human beings and the "shadow" counterpart to his Messiah dying on the cross--must first shed all his human qualities. His failings of greed, deceit, and cowardice--and even his faith and hope--are washed away in the despair that engulfs him. A parallel moment occurs for Jesus on the cross, when he comes to know the despair of separation from God. The moment Judas "loses" his life and all that gave it meaning--his God, his law, his justice, his Messiah--is the very moment he finds that which cannot be discarded--life eternal. Thus, in the momentof his ultimate extremity, Judas receives Jesus's true message and his intended gift.JEAN-YVES LELOUP is a theologian and founder of the Institute of Other Civilization Studies and the International College of Therapists. His other books include The Sacred Embrace of Jesus and Mary, The Gospel of Mary Magdalene, The Gospel of Philip, and The Gospel of Thomas. He lives in France.

Concise: Each book gets straight to the heart of its subject

Who is Jesus? Christians have been arguing about the answer to that question since there have been Christians, and it seems unlikely that they're going to agree on an answer anytime soon. Mark Osler, always a bit uncomfortable in church, was never able to find a Jesus that seemed real to himaEURO"until he put Jesus on trial. Drawing on his training as a federal prosecutor and professor of law, he and a group of friends staged the trial of Jesus for their church, as though it were happening in the modern American criminal justice system. The event was so powerful that before long Osler received invitations to take it on the road. Each time he served as Christ's prosecutor, the story of Jesus opened up to him a bit more. Prosecuting Jesus follows Osler in this extraordinary journey of discovering himself by discovering Jesus. Juxtaposing things we rarely put together, like the passion of Christ and our ideas about capital punishment, Osler explores an active engagement between Jesus and our contemporary law and culture.

Nineteenth-century America was rife with Protestant-fueled anti-Catholicism. Elizabeth Hayes Alvarez reveals how Protestants nevertheless became surprisingly and deeply fascinated with the Virgin Mary, even as her role as a devotional figure who united Catholics grew. Documenting the vivid Marian imagery that suffused popular visual and literary culture, Alvarez argues that Mary became a potent, shared exemplar of Christian womanhood around which Christians of all stripes rallied during an era filled with anxiety about the emerging market economy and shifting gender roles. From a range of diverse sources, including the writings of Anna Jameson, Anna Dorsey, and Alexander Stewart Walsh and magazines such as The Ladies' Repository and Harper's, Alvarez demonstrates that Mary was represented as pure and powerful, compassionate and transcendent, maternal and yet remote. Blending romantic views of motherhood and female purity, the virgin mother's image enamored Protestants as a paragon of the era's cult of true womanhood, and even many Catholics could imagine the Queen of Heaven as the Queen of the Home. Sometimes, Marian imagery unexpectedly seemed to challenge domestic expectations of womanhood. On a broader level, The Valiant Woman contributes to understanding lived religion in America and the ways it borrows across supposedly sharp theological divides.

The words of Jesus Christ as related in the New Testament. All the best known stories include Nicodemus, Lost Sheep, Prodigal Son, Good Samaritan, Sermon on the Mount and many more. Bible References for each story

"The Bible gives instances of two men being translated to heaven without dying at all; of some dead people, who were raised to life, only to die again; but we never read of a resurrected man ascending to heaven, save in the one exception of our Lord. He died, and was raised the third day, and having abundantly proved His resurrection to His doubting disciples, He ascended to glory, and set Himself down at the right hand of God. Such a claim is stupendous. Prove it, and you prove Christianity. Disprove it, and you disprove Christianity...The truth of Christianity hinges on the fact of the resurrection of our Lord. Apart from the resurrection of Christ, there can be no salvation, no forgiveness of sins, no justification, and no gift of eternal life - in short, no Christianity. Remove the central stone of an arch, and the whole structure falls to the ground. So it is with the Deity and Manhood of our Lord Jesus Christ, His spotless life, His atoning death, His resurrection, and His ascension. These are all linked up together, making one complete whole. If one part fails, the whole of Christianity fails." So wrote Algernon Pollock, that indefatigable apologist from the pulpit and in print wherever he saw the Christian faith under attack. Beginning with an overview of the Bible's detailing of the facts and consequences of Christ's resurrection, the author briefly considers Old Testament prophecies of the resurrection, before reviewing Christ's own prophecies of His death. He continues with an examination of the person, life and death of the Lord Jesus Christ, and their connection with His resurrection. He then considers the circumstances of the Lord's resurrection, before an extensive discussion of all the recorded appearances of the risen Christ. An examination of objections to the inspiration of the Gospel accounts is followed by a look at some theories presented in denial of the resurrection. Significant reference is made to an interesting mid-18th century study entitled "Observations on the Conversion and Apostleship of St. Paul; In a Letter to Gilbert West, Esq." by Sir George Lyttleton, later Lord Lyttleton, Baron of Frankley. Lyttleton and West set out to disprove Christianity by proving two key points of Christianity false: Lyttelton that St.Paul did not convert to Christianity, and West that Jesus never rose from the dead. However, as their researches progressed, they both became convinced of the truth of the events they sought to disprove. The author, himself convinced of the fact of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, plainly sets out his reasons in this book.