Jesus Christ for Contemporary Life. Don Schweitzer

For an overview of the history of the quest for the historical Jesus that unfortunately omits the Jesus Seminar, see Keating, “Epistemology and Theological Application,” 19–21.

3. Elizabeth Johnson divides approaches to the quest into three often concurrent trajectories: one that seeks to debunk or drastically reformulate Christian faith, one that repudiates the relevance of the quest for Christian faith, and one that sees the quest as having a theological importance on the grounds that it provides knowledge about the person that Christians claim in the Christ; see Johnson, “Word Was Made Flesh,” 147–49.

4. Haight, Jesus, 38–40.

5. Schüssler Fiorenza, “Jesus of Nazareth in Historical Research,” 41.

6. Meier, Marginal Jew, 1:372–409.

7. Jaffee, Early Judaism, 114.

8. For one study of the Gospel of Thomas and other non-canonical literature that some use as a source of historical knowledge about Jesus and the development of the New Testament, see Crossan, Four Other Gospels.

9. Freyne, Jesus, 46, 136.

10. For an overview of Second Temple Judaism, see Cohen, From the Maccabees.

11. Crossan, Historical Jesus, 18–19.

12. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, 335–40.

13. Meier, Marginal Jew, 2:116.

14. For a discussion of these, see Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, 335–37.

15. Ibid., 319. This understanding is typical of scholars participating in what is frequently called the “third quest” for the historical Jesus.

16. Crossan, Historical Jesus, 238, 243–60. This position is often found in the work of scholars associated with the Jesus Seminar.

17. Meier, “Present State of ‘Third Quest,’” 460.

18. As Michael Welker notes, “we must consider the likelihood that Jesus had a different impact on the rural population of Galilee than he did on the urban population of Jerusalem . . . that those who wished to hold high the Mosaic law or the Temple cult in the face of the Roman occupation perceived Jesus differently than did those who wanted to embrace Roman culture . . . that the testimony of those whom Jesus met with healing and acceptance must differ from the testimony of those whose main impression of Jesus was drawn from his conflicts with Rome and Jerusalem” (Welker, “‘Who Is Jesus for Us?,’” 140.

19. John Meier, “Elijah-Like Prophet,” 46.

20. Collins and Collins, King and Messiah, 171.

21. Tilley, Disciples’ Jesus, 121.

22. Schillebeeckx, Jesus, 139.

23. Becker, Jesus of Nazareth, 79–80.

24. Meier, Marginal Jew, 3:438–39, 443.

25. Becker, Jesus of Nazareth, 138.

26. Schüssler Fiorenza, Jesus, 110–11.

27. Horsley, Jesus and Empire, 103.

28. Crossan, Historical Jesus, 262, 298.

29. Becker, Jesus of Nazareth, 29; Theissen and Merz, Historical Jesus, 220–24.

30. Matt 11:2–6; Wright, Jesus, 193–94.

31. Sobrino, Jesus the Liberator, 68.

32. Wright, Jesus, 451–54.

33. Theissen, “Ambivalence of Power,” 26, 28.

34. Käsemann, Essays on New Testament Themes, 43.

35. Theissen, “Ambivalence of Power,” 28.

36. Theissen and Merz, Historical Jesus, 146.

37. Vermes, Religion of Jesus, 146.

38. For the notion of “transmoral,” see Tillich, Morality and Beyond, 80–81.

39. Freyne, Jesus, 169.

40. Theissen and Merz, Historical Jesus, 272–74.

41. Vermes, Religion of Jesu, 180.

42. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, 179; Meier, Marginal Jew, 3:528.

43. Schillebeeckx, Jesus, 213.

44. Kasemann, Essays on New Testament Themes, 42.

45. Meyer, Aims of Jesus, 151–53.