Jesus, the Unprecedented Human Being. Giosuè Ghisalberti

Untimely Meditations. Tr. R. J. Hollingdale. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.

40 Osborne, Grant T. The Hermeneutic Spiral: A Comprehensive Introduction to Biblical Interpretation. Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Academic, 2006.

41 Horsley, Richard. The Liberation of Christmas: The Infancy Narratives in Social Context. Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 1989, 18–19.

42 Borg, Marcus Joel. “Seeing Jesus: Sources, Lenses, Method,” 3–14 in The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions. New York: HarperCollins, 1999, 8.

43 Vermes, Geza. Jesus the Jew: A Historian’s Reading of the Gospels. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1981, 16.

44 Lindars, Barnabas. Jesus Son of Man: A Fresh Examination of the Son of Man Sayings in the Gospels in the Light of Recent Research. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1983, 1.

45 Collins, Adela Yarbro. “The Origin of the Designation of Jesus as “Son of Man”,” 391–407 in The Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 80, No. 4 (Oct., 1987), 407.

46 Wright, Nicholas Thomas. Who was Jesus? Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1992, 39.

47 Aslan, Resa. Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth. New York: Random House, 2014, 121. The overwhelming evidence in Acts, Paul’s letters, and the gospels make this belief impossible to defend. Innumerable passages testify to his universal teaching. Three, out of countless others, will here suffice. After the birth of Jesus, it is announced that he brings “good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people” (Luke 2:10). After his death and in, literally, his last will and testament, he appears to his disciples and tells them to “teach all nations” (Matt. 28:19) and to take his message “unto the uttermost parts of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

48 Bultmann, Rudolf. “The Problem of Hermeneutics” in Rudolf Bultmann: Interpreting Faith for the Modern Era. Ed. Roger A. Johnson. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991, 146.

49 Vermes, Geza. Jesus and the World of Judaism. London: SCM Press, 1983, 26, my emphasis. In making such a claim, Vermes has created an unbridgeable chasm between a Christianity with its origin firmly (and exclusively) in Jewish culture, and a later development which, he claims, has somehow been a deviance from if not an outright betrayal of that origin.

50 Witherington III, Ben. Jesus the Sage: The Pilgrimage of Wisdom. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994, 118.

51 Aune, David E. The New Testament in Its Literary Environment. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986, 12.

52 Barnett, Paul. Jesus and the Rise of Early Christianity: A History of New Testament Times. Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 1999, 10 and 155.

53 Johnson, Timothy Luke. “Learning the Human Jesus: Historical Criticism and Literary Criticism,” 153–178 in The Historical Jesus: Five Views. James K. Beilby and Paul Rhodes Eddy. (eds.). Downers Grove, Illinois. IVP Academic, 2009. All page numbers are from this text.

54 Johnson, Timothy Luke. “The Humanity of Jesus: What’s at Stake in the Quest for the Historical Jesus,” 48–74 in The Jesus Controversy: Perspectives in Conflict. Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 1999, 70.

55 Balthasar, Hans Urs von. “Jesus, the Absolutely Singular,” in The Von Balthasar Reader. Ed. Medark Kehl and Werner Löser. Edinburg: T&T Clark, 1982, 124, my emphasis.

56 Smith, Jonathan Zittell. Drudgery Divine: On the Comparison of Early Christianities and the Religions of Late Antiquity. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1990, 38.

57 Mack, Burton. A Myth of Innocence: Mark and Christian Origins. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988, 4.

58 Schleiermacher, Friedrich D. E. “The Hermeneutics: Outline of the 1819 Lectures,” 85–100 in The Hermeneutic Tradition: From Ast to Ricoeur. Ed. Gayle L. Ormiston and Alan D. Schrift. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990, 89.

59 Dunn, James D. G. Jesus and the Spirit: A Study of the Religious and Charismatic Experience of Jesus and the First Christians as Reflected in the New Testament. London: SCM Press Ltd., 1975, 40.

60 Hengel, Martin. The Charismatic Leader and His Followers. Tr. James Greig. New York: Crossroad, 1981, 49. He adds: “he remains in the last resort incommensurable,” 69.

61 Hamerton-Kelly, R. G. Pre-Existence, Wisdom, and the Son of Man: A Study of the Idea of Pre-Existence in the New Testament. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973, 50, my emphasis.

62 Bultmann, Rudolf. History and Eschatology: The Presence of Eternity. The Gifford Lectures of 1955. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1957, 60.

63 Breech, James. The Silence of Jesus: The Authentic Voice of the Historical Man. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983, 218. He adds: “Jesus might be more complex and original than commonly supposed.”

64 Sanders, E. P. Jesus and Judaism. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985.

65 Stauffer, Ethelbert. Jesus and his Story. London: SCM Press, 1960, 11, 125.

66 Bornkamm, Günther. Jesus of Nazareth. Tr. Irene and Fraser McLuskey, with James M. Robinson. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1960, 56.

67 Wedderburn, Alexander J. M. Jesus and the Historians. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010, 294.

68 Moltmann, Jürgen. The Crucified God: 40th Anniversary Edition. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2015, 151.

69 Schillebeeckx, Edward. Interim Report on the Books of Jesus and Christ. New York: Crossroad, 1981, 12.