The Historical Jesus

faith-and-doubt

• Opinions of lay people and scholars about him are so much at odds with one another that they simply cannot all be right.

  HJB-RC-006

• These books were probably not written by eyewitnesses — written thirty-five to sixty-five years after the events they narrate by highly educated, Greek-speaking Christians.

  HJB-RC-027

• Traditions most reliable are those independently attested, not created to fulfill a need in the early Christian community, and making sense in a first-century context.

  HJB-RC-058

obedience-and-authority

• Stories were told in different languages in different places over a huge geographical area — we can assume that the stories got changed as they were told and retold.

  HJB-RC-031

• The kingdom would have complete equality, and those who were oppressed would be exalted. Women were drawn to this message.

  HJB-RC-096

mortality

• The nail had been driven into a knot in the wood and couldn't be removed — Yehochanan appears to have been tied to the cross.

  HJB-RC-126