The Historical Jesus [repost]
Description
Who is Jesus of Nazareth? What was he like? For more than 2000 years, people and groups of different beliefs have been pondering these questions and doing their best to answer them. The significance of this subject is obvious. From the late Roman Empire down to our time, no permanent institution or belief system has had as much influence as Christianity, no figure has had as much influence as Jesus.
Revered by more than a billion people around the world today, he is undoubtedly the most important figure in the history of Western civilization and one of the most significant figures in world history as a whole.
A wide range of opinions, even among scientists
Everyone who has even the slightest idea about Jesus has an opinion about him, says Professor Bart D. Ehrman, and these opinions differ greatly.
These differences are noticeable not only among lay people, but even among professional scientists who have devoted their lives to the task of reconstructing what the historical Jesus was and what he most likely said and did.
In this course, you will learn what the best historical evidence seems to indicate by listening to lectures designed without the intention of confirming or disproving any specific theological beliefs.
Professor Ehrman, who created this course as a companion to his 24-lecture teaching company course on the New Testament, approaches this issue from a purely historical point of view. He explains why it was so difficult to find out about this “Jesus of history”. And it shows, what conclusions have you made about him by modern scientists.
Main sources of knowledge about Jesus
You begin the course by discussing the four new Testament Gospels, which are generally considered to be our main sources of knowledge about Jesus.
You will learn that these books are not written as dispassionate stories for impartial observers, and that their authors do not pretend to be eyewitnesses to the events they describe.
Instead, they write decades later, telling stories they have heard—stories that have been in circulation for decades among the followers of Jesus.
So the first step is to determine what type of books the Gospels belong to and determine how reliable their information about Jesus is.
The question will be: apart from their value as religious documents of faith, what do the Gospels tell historians?
Problems Faced By Scientists
As you will soon learn, the Gospels present significant challenges for scholars who want to know about the words and deeds of Jesus.
You begin to explore some of these difficulties by wondering what kind of documents the Gospels are:
Who wrote them and why?
How do they present themselves?
Who is their target audience?
What is their relationship to each other, to the rest of the New Testament, and to other early Christian writings?
What is their status as historical narratives?
To help answer these questions, Join Professor Ehrman in carefully reviewing other relevant sources. They include many writings—some of them recently discovered-that are not included in the New Testament, but that nevertheless claim to tell the story of the life and teachings of Jesus.
Learn about the “lost gospel””
Among them is the widely discussed “lost gospel of V.”. you will learn why scientists believe in the existence of such a text and what they think it may contain.
Let’s look at how much documentary evidence about Jesus can be found in ancient Jewish and Roman sources, what these references tell us, and even how historians approach such sources when they have them.
Professor Ehrman addresses such questions as:
What criteria do scientists use to analyze and compare sources?
How do they actually dig beneath the surface of stories about Jesus to find out what he most likely was?
What are the arguments supporting each of these proof-checking methods?
Recreating the life and deeds of Jesus
After you have mastered this introduction to the sources and ways of processing them, Professor Ehrman proceeds to consider the historical context of the life of Jesus. Here it is suggested that historical understanding, as far as possible, should begin by trying to place Jesus in the context of his own time.
After studying the political, social, and cultural history of 1st-century Palestine, you move on to the second major part of the course-the scientific reconstruction of the words and deeds of Jesus in the light of the best available historical methods and evidence.
Reconstructing these words and actions, Professor Ehrman addresses several questions:
Why do the earliest sources at our disposal, including the gospel of Mark, portray Jesus as a Jewish apocalypticist who foresaw that God would soon overthrow the forces of evil and establish his good Kingdom here on Earth?
How close is this image to life?
Did Jesus proclaim the coming of the Kingdom?
How should we understand his references to the coming of the Son of Man in the light of the best historical analysis and evidence we can gather?
Fatal Easter
How do Jesus ‘ ethical teachings, his own activities, and the events of his last days fit into this analysis?
Why did Jesus go to Jerusalem for the Passover, and what was he going to do when he got there?
What situation was he in?
What were the intentions of those he met there, including the Roman Procurator Pontius Pilate, the temple hierarchy, and other Jewish authorities?
Historical science can teach you something about all these questions, and the answers to them will help you better understand the meaning of history.
In conclusion, Professor Ehrman examines how followers of Jesus began to speak and eventually write about him in light of their belief that God raised him from the dead.
Here the emphasis shifts from the religion of Jesus to the religion about Jesus, or in other words, from the search for the historical Jesus to the study of early Christianity.
This is a natural place to complete this course, which is an excellent accompaniment to Professor Ehrman’s two-part series of lectures on the New Testament and other company training courses on religion.
Lectures:
01. The Many-Faced Jesus
02. One Wonderful Life
03. Scientists look at the Gospels
04. Facts and fiction in the Gospels
05. The Birth Of The Gospels
06. Some of the other Gospels
07. Coptic gospel of Thomas
08. other sources
09. Historical criteria-return to Jesus
10. More Historical Criteria
11. about the early years of Jesus ‘ life
12. Jesus in his context
13. Jesus and Roman rule
14. Jesus-the apocalyptic Prophet
15. Apocalyptic teachings of Jesus
16. other teachings of Jesus in their apocalyptic context
17. The works of Jesus in their apocalyptic context
18. Still other words and deeds of Jesus
19. Jesus ‘ Controversies
20. The last days of Jesus Christ
21. The last hours of Jesus Christ
22. The death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ
23. Afterlife of Jesus
24. Prophet of the new Millennium
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Course Features
- Lectures 0
- Quizzes 0
- Duration Lifetime access
- Skill level All levels
- Language English
- Students 157
- Assessments Yes
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