The Quest for the Plausible Jesus - The Question of Criteria

Should the dissimilarity between Jesus and early Christianity or between Jesus and Judaism be the central criterion for identifying the historical Jesus? The authors argue that the criterion of dissimilarity does not do justice to the single most important result of more than two hundred years of Jesus research - which is that the historical Jesus belongs to both Judaism and Christianity. They propose a criterion of historical plausibility whereby historical phenomena under question can be considered authentic so long as they can plausibly be understood in their Jewish context and facilitate a plausible explanation for their effect on Christian history.

About the author

Gerd Theissen is Professor of New Testament at the University of Heidelberg in Germany. His books include The Religion of the Earliest Churches and The Shadow of the Galilean: The Quest of the Historical Jesus in Narrative Form.

Product details

• Authors: Gerd Theißen, Dagmar Winter
• Assisted by: M. Eugene Boring (Translation)
• Publisher: Presbyterian Publishing Corporation
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 30.08.2002
• EAN: 9780664225377
• ISBN: 978-0-664-22537-7
• No. of pages: 344
• Dimensions: 156 mm x 234 mm x 19 mm
• Weight: 562 g
• Subject: Humanities, art, music > Religion/theology > Christianity