List of books about Jesus

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This is a bibliography of works with information or interpretations of the life and teachings of Jesus. The list is grouped by date, and sorted within each group (except for the very earliest works) alphabetically by name of author.

Contents

Jesus of Nazareth ( /ˈzəs/ ; 7–2 BC/BCE to 30–36 AD/CE), commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity. Most Christian denominations venerate him as God the Son incarnated and believe that he rose from the dead after being crucified. [1] [2] The principal sources of information regarding Jesus are the four canonical gospels. [3] Note that this list does not contain important books about Jesus pertaining to Islam, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Bahá'í, or several other significant faiths.

1st and 2nd centuries

7th century

17th century

18th century

19th century

20th century

19011950

19512000

21st century

Unknown date

Jesus as different from Paul the Apostle

Jesus Married?

Jacobovici, Simcha (2014). The Lost Gospel. New York: Pegasus. ISBN   978-1-60598-610-4.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gospel</span> Books on the life and teachings of Jesus

Gospel originally meant the Christian message, but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was reported. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words and deeds of Jesus, culminating in his trial and death and concluding with various reports of his post-resurrection appearances.

The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events relating to first-century Christianity. The New Testament's background, the first division of the Christian Bible, is called the Old Testament, which is based primarily upon the Hebrew Bible; together they are regarded as Sacred Scripture by Christians.

The Jesus Seminar was a group of about 50 biblical criticism scholars and 100 laymen founded in 1985 by Robert Funk that originated under the auspices of the Westar Institute. The seminar was very active through the 1980s and 1990s, and into the early 21st century.

Earl J. Doherty is a Canadian author of The Jesus Puzzle (1999), Challenging the Verdict (2001), and Jesus: Neither God Nor Man (2009). Doherty argues for a version of the Christ myth theory, the thesis that Jesus did not exist as a historical figure. Doherty says that Paul thought of Jesus as a spiritual being executed in a spiritual realm.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nativity of Jesus</span> Birth of Jesus

The Nativity or birth of JesusChrist is documented in the biblical gospels of Luke and Matthew. The two accounts agree that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, in Roman-controlled Judea, that his mother, Mary, was engaged to a man named Joseph, who was descended from King David and was not his biological father, and that his birth was caused by divine intervention. Some scholars do not see the two canonical gospel Nativity stories as historically factual since they present clashing accounts and irreconcilable genealogies. The secular history of the time does not synchronize with the narratives of the birth and early childhood of Jesus in the two gospels. Some view the question of historicity as secondary, given that gospels were primarily written as theological documents rather than chronological timelines.

The historicity of Jesus is the question of whether Jesus historically existed. The question of historicity was generally settled in scholarship in the early 20th century. Today scholars agree that a Jewish man named Jesus of Nazareth did exist in the Herodian Kingdom of Judea and the subsequent Herodian tetrarchy in the 1st century AD, upon whose life and teachings Christianity was later constructed, but a distinction is made by scholars between 'the Jesus of history' and 'the Christ of faith'.

The term "historical Jesus" refers to the life and teachings of Jesus as interpreted through critical historical methods, in contrast to what are traditionally religious interpretations. It also considers the historical and cultural contexts in which Jesus lived. Virtually all scholars of antiquity accept that Jesus was a historical figure, and the idea that Jesus was a mythical figure has been consistently rejected by the scholarly consensus as a fringe theory. Scholars differ about the beliefs and teachings of Jesus as well as the accuracy of the biblical accounts, with only two events being supported by nearly universal scholarly consensus: Jesus was baptized and Jesus was crucified.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rudolf Bultmann</span> German theologian (1884–1976)

Rudolf Karl Bultmann was a German Lutheran theologian and professor of the New Testament at the University of Marburg. He was one of the major figures of early 20th-century biblical studies. A prominent critic of liberal theology, Bultmann instead argued for an existentialist interpretation of the New Testament. His hermeneutical approach to the New Testament led him to be a proponent of dialectical theology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Raymond E. Brown</span> American priest and biblical scholar (1928-1998)

Raymond Edward Brown was an American Sulpician priest and prominent biblical scholar. He was a specialist on the hypothetical Johannine community, which he speculated contributed to the authorship of the Gospel of John, and he also wrote studies on the birth and death of Jesus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Historical background of the New Testament</span>

Most scholars who study the historical Jesus and early Christianity believe that the canonical gospels and the life of Jesus must be viewed within their historical and cultural context, rather than purely in terms of Christian orthodoxy. They look at Second Temple Judaism, the tensions, trends, and changes in the region under the influence of Hellenism and the Roman occupation, and the Jewish factions of the time, seeing Jesus as a Jew in this environment; and the written New Testament as arising from a period of oral gospel traditions after his death.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jesus</span> Central figure of Christianity

Jesus, also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the central figure of Christianity, the world's largest religion. Most Christian denominations believe Jesus to be the incarnation of God the Son and the awaited messiah, or Christ, a descendant from the Davidic line that is prophesied in the Old Testament. Virtually all modern scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed historically. Accounts of Jesus's life are contained in the Gospels, especially the four canonical Gospels in the New Testament. Academic research has yielded various views on the historical reliability of the Gospels and how closely they reflect the historical Jesus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christ myth theory</span> Fringe theory claiming that a historical Jesus did not exist

The Christ myth theory, also known as the Jesus myth theory, Jesus mythicism, or the Jesus ahistoricity theory, is the view that the story of Jesus is a work of mythology with no historical substance. Alternatively, in terms given by Bart Ehrman paraphrasing Earl Doherty, it is the view that "the historical Jesus did not exist. Or if he did, he had virtually nothing to do with the founding of Christianity."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jesus in comparative mythology</span> Comparative mythology study of Jesus Christ

The study of Jesus in comparative mythology is the examination of the narratives of the life of Jesus in the Christian gospels, traditions and theology, as they relate to Christianity and other religions. Although the vast majority of New Testament scholars and historians of the ancient Near East agree that Jesus existed as a historical figure, most secular historians also agree that the gospels contain large quantities of ahistorical legendary details mixed in with historical information about Jesus's life. The Synoptic Gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke are heavily shaped by Jewish tradition, with the Gospel of Matthew deliberately portraying Jesus as a "new Moses". Although it is highly unlikely that the authors of the Synoptic Gospels directly based any of their accounts on pagan mythology, it is possible that they may have subtly shaped their accounts of Jesus's healing miracles to resemble familiar Greek stories about miracles associated with Asclepius, the god of healing and medicine. The birth narratives of Matthew and Luke are usually seen by secular historians as legends designed to fulfill Jewish expectations about the Messiah.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gospel of Truth</span> Gnostic text from the New Testament apocrypha

The Gospel of the Truth is one of the Gnostic texts from the New Testament apocrypha found in the Nag Hammadi codices ("NHC"). It exists in two Coptic translations, a Subakhmimic rendition surviving almost in full in the first Nag Hammadi codex and a Sahidic in fragments in the twelfth codex.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Flight into Egypt</span> Biblical story about the flight of Joseph, Mary and the infant Jesus

The flight into Egypt is a story recounted in the Gospel of Matthew and in New Testament apocrypha. Soon after the visit by the Magi, an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream telling him to flee to Egypt with Mary and the infant Jesus since King Herod would seek the child to kill him. The episode is frequently shown in art, as the final episode of the Nativity of Jesus in art, and was a common component in cycles of the Life of the Virgin as well as the Life of Christ. Within the narrative tradition, iconic representation of the "Rest on the Flight into Egypt" developed after the 14th century.

Criticism of the Bible refers to a variety of criticisms of the Bible, the collection of religious texts held to be sacred by Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and other Abrahamic religions. Criticisms of the Bible often concern the text’s factual accuracy, moral tenability, and supposed inerrancy claimed by biblical literalists. There remain questions of biblical authorship and what material to include in the biblical canon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bart D. Ehrman</span> American biblical scholar (born 1955)

Bart Denton Ehrman is an American New Testament scholar focusing on textual criticism of the New Testament, the historical Jesus, and the origins and development of early Christianity. He has written and edited 30 books, including three college textbooks. He has also authored six New York Times bestsellers. He is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

John Paul Meier was an American biblical scholar and Roman Catholic priest. He was author of the series A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, six other books, and more than 70 articles for peer-reviewed or solicited journals or books.

<i>The Quest of the Historical Jesus</i> Book by Albert Schweitzer

The Quest of the Historical Jesus is a 1906 work of Biblical historical criticism written by Albert Schweitzer during the previous year, before he began to study for a medical degree.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christianity in the 1st century</span> Christianity-related events during the 1st century

Christianity in the 1st century covers the formative history of Christianity from the start of the ministry of Jesus to the death of the last of the Twelve Apostles and is thus also known as the Apostolic Age. Early Christianity developed out of the eschatological ministry of Jesus. Subsequent to Jesus' death, his earliest followers formed an apocalyptic messianic Jewish sect during the late Second Temple period of the 1st century. Initially believing that Jesus' resurrection was the start of the end time, their beliefs soon changed in the expected Second Coming of Jesus and the start of God's Kingdom at a later point in time.

References

  1. Newbigin (1989) p. 66 "the whole of Christian teaching would fall to the ground if it were the case that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus were not events in real history but stories told to illustrate truths which are valid apart from these happenings."
  2. Grudem (1994) pp. 568–603
  3. Funk, Robert W.; Seminar, Jesus (1998). Introduction. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco. pp.  1–40. ISBN   978-0-06-062978-6.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  4. Varner, Will. "Review of The Apostolic Fathers: Greek texts and English Translations, 3rd edn". tms.edu. Archived from the original on February 10, 2015. Retrieved February 10, 2015.
  5. Kasper, Walter (1976). Jesus the Christ . New Jersey: Paulist Press. pp.  289. ISBN   0-8091-2081-X.
  6. "Review of Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan". Journal of the American Academy of Religion . 38 (1): 84–85. March 1970. JSTOR   1461704.
  7. "Review of Christ the End of the Law". Journal of Biblical Literature . 107 (1): 145–146. March 1988. JSTOR   3267846.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Theissen, Gerd and Annette Merz. The historical Jesus: a comprehensive guide. Fortress Press. 1998. translated from German (1996 edition)
  9. "Review of The Hero Pattern and the Life of Jesus". Western Folklore . 38 (1): 56–57. January 1979. doi:10.2307/1498986. JSTOR   1498986. S2CID   165574835.
  10. "Review of Proceedings of the First International Congress of Mithraic Studies". Britannia . 7: 396–397. 1976. doi:10.2307/525789. JSTOR   525789. S2CID   161913812.
  11. Bogs, Christopher R. "Critical Review Paper on Jesus the Magician: Charlatan or Son of God?" (PDF). upenn.edu. Retrieved February 15, 2015.