The Historical Jesus
This lecture addresses the methodological challenges of constructing the 'historical Jesus' from contradictory New Testament accounts. It outlines scholarly principles for evaluating historical data, prioritizing multiple attestations and theological dissimilarity.
Introduction to New Testament (RLST 152)
It is obvious that certain narratives in the New Testament contradict each other and cannot be woven into a historically coherent whole. How, then, do scholars construct who the "historical Jesus" was? There are several principles that historical Jesus researchers follow, which include considering data that 1) has multiple attestations and 2) is dissimilar to a text's theological tendencies as more likely to be historical. Using the modern methods of historical research, it becomes possible to construct a "historical Jesus."